‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever’ Review: Peter Farrelly’s Vietnam War Film Starring Zac Efron Is a Bloated Misfire

When filmmaker Peter Farrelly final attended the Toronto Worldwide Movie Competition in 2018, his feel-good message film Inexperienced Guide would take dwelling the pageant’s Folks’s Alternative award and go on to win three Oscars, together with Greatest Image.

It’s unlikely that lightning shall be hanging twice together with his newest effort, The Biggest Beer Run Ever, which sees match to deal with America’s involvement within the Vietnam Struggle a lot in the identical method his earlier movie tackled the topic of race relations.

Impressed by the unlikely however true story of a working class New York Service provider Marine who boarded a ship certain for Saigon in 1967 with the only real intention of bringing his deployed buddies beer so as to elevate their spirits, the brand new undertaking, which arrives on Apple TV+ on the finish of this month, admittedly holds some audience-pleasing potential. However whereas each the title and the set-up, taken from the e book of the identical title by John Donohue and J.T. Molloy, may recommend one thing extra alongside the brightly satirical strains of the films he used to make together with his brother, Bobby, Farrelly’s loftier impulses work towards the fabric. The result’s a meandering, disjointed manufacturing that struggles all through to discover a satisfying tone.

As performed by Zac Efron (sporting a ’70s porn star ‘stache), John “Chickie” Donahue is a real slacker of his period. He nonetheless lives at dwelling together with his dad and mom and pacifist sister (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis), sleeping late and staying up later pounding them again at Doc Fiddler’s, the native watering maintain overseen by “The Colonel” (a critical Invoice Murray), who contends that the graphic Vietnam battle footage broadcast by TV networks is unhealthy for American morale.

Desirous to do his bit for his friends’ morale, Chickie hops on a cargo ship with no plans apart from to distribute the now toasty cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon from his seemingly bottomless duffle bag, then merely flip round and head again dwelling. He quickly finds out that it’s loads more durable to get out of a battle than it’s to get into one, particularly when his arrival occurs to coincide with the onset of the Tet Offensive.

Anxious to discover a method again to his ship, Chickie initially poses as a CIA agent to assist facilitate his departure, solely to witness a darker facet of the battle he was by no means meant to see. As he’s reminded by the gruff however philosophical Arthur (Russell Crowe), a battle correspondent for Look Journal, there are a variety of wars happening in Vietnam, however most necessary is the general public relations one.

Though Crowe’s measured efficiency momentarily manages to deflate the air of self-importance that engulfs the movie, Farrelly and co-script writers Brian Currie and Pete Jones carry on hammering dwelling the Vietnam speaking factors as if there shall be a take a look at on it afterwards, and the didacticism retains dragging down no matter vitality the film makes an attempt to muster.

Whereas Efron has confirmed himself prior to now as an affable actor, his self-absorbed character requires somebody with a higher dramatic heft or sharper comedic chops to make the viewers need to preserve rooting for him alongside his path to enlightenment. By the tip of this needlessly drawn-out tour, Chickie’s expertise might need opened his eyes to some inconvenient truths, however hapless, heavy-lidded viewers may not be so lucky.