Robin Williams

Forest Whitaker

Tom T. Tran

Chintara Sukapatana

Bruno Kirby

Robert Wuhl

J. T. Walsh

Noble Willingham

Richard Edson

Juney Smith

Richard Portnow

Floyd Vivino

Cu Ba Nguyen

Dan Stanton

Don Stanton

Danny Aiello III

James McIntire

Peter MacKenzie

No Tran

Hoa Nguyen

Uikey Kuay

Suvit Abakaz

Panas Wiwatpanachat

Lerdcharn Namkiri

Hanh Thi Nguyen

Tuan Lai

Boonchai Jakraworawut

Joe B. Veokeki

Wichien Chaopramong

Kien Chufak

Prasert Tangpantarat

Tim O'Hare

John Goyer

Louis Hood

Christopher Mangan

Kenneth Pitochelli

Jonathan MacLeod

Gregg T. Knight

Ralph Tabakin

Sangad Sangkao

Vanlap Sangko

Mark Johnson

John Marshall Jones

Peter Sova

Steve Spence

Tessa Davies

Roy Walker

Stu Linder

Larry Brezner

Alex North

Barry Levinson

Mike Lockey

Mitch Markowitz

Louis DiGiaimo

Eric Allwright

Keith Denny

Nick Hobbs

Clive Curtis

Fred Cramer

Bill Phillips

Harry Benn

Jayne Armstrong

Ben Moses

John Roberts

Chris Tashima

Comedy

Drama

Good Morning, Vietnam

Touchstone Pictures

Silver Screen Partners III

United States of America

Good, if a little underwhelming.

Robin Williams (Adrian) is in strong form, while it's amusing to see a less experienced Forest Whitaker (Edward) in a rather dorky role. 'Good Morning, Vietnam' all makes for satisfactory viewing thanks to Mr. Williams' humour, even if I didn't have a great deal of interest in the plot et al.

**_An unseen side of the Vietnam War_**

Airman Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) is a DJ in Saigon, 1965. While Cronauer is a hit with the troops he incurs the wrath of his superiors for what they consider irreverent and subversive tendencies. When he's off the air, Cronauer pursues a cute Vietnamese woman (Chintara Sukapatana) while befriending her brother (Tung Thanh Tran). Forest Whitaker plays Cronauer's friend at the station while J.T. Walsh and Bruno Kirby play his nemeses.

Based on the real-life story, "Good Morning, Vietnam" (1987) came out when Vietnam films were popular. While categorized as a war comedy, it's more of a war drama with amusing touches, mostly due to Williams' antics. It was a box office hit when released and hailed by critics. Roger Ebert, for instance, gave it a perfect rating. I didn't see it until a couple of nights ago, far removed from the hoopla of the period, and found it decent and somewhat amusing, but a tad overrated. 

Nevertheless, there's an unexpected twist in the third act and the movie is a necessary companion-piece to movies like "Platoon" (1986) in that it provides the non-grunt, political side of the infamous conflict. For instance, the story takes place just _before_ the troop levels were beefed up to 385,000 in 1966, which would escalate to 536,000 by 1968.

The film runs 2 hours, 1 minute, and was shot in Thailand.

GRADE: B-