PHOTO — MARIANNE GILBERT Catching Robin Williams’ irreverent airwaves GOOD MORNING, VIETNAM. Star- ring Robin Williams, J.T. Walsh. Directed by Barry Levinson. At local theatres. Go-o-o-o-d morning, Tribune readers! Stay tuned to this page ‘cause we’ve got the chatter that matters, to make groovin’ be-e-e-choovin’. We’re gonna take a little Mand Lan’ mix it with the latest Vietnam retrospective, but first, hey, a little sump- thin’ from James Brown —I feeeel good — beep-beep-ba-beep (Walter Win- chell voice): “In the news today the peo- ple’s weekly, the Pacific Tribune, said Since its.contest was now banned it would save paper by printing issues on old Novosti press releases.” Hey, and Robin Williams’ brand of irreverence sure is infectious. He plays Adrian Cronauer, an air force conscript who in 1965 is transferred from Crete to Saigon to contribute to Armed Forces Radio’s morale-boosting broadcasts to the troops. But Adrian isn’t your average boring-as-whaleshit (his words, not mine) army disc jockey. In no time flat he’s got the brass up his, ahem, on account of his rap sounds like a cross between Wolfman Jack and Lenny Bruce. And he plays those rock-n-roll and soul records to boot, with each show ushered in by his signal salute: ““Go-o-o-d Morning, Vietnam!” Loosely based on the experiences of the actual Adrian Cronauer, Good Morning Vietnam is as fast paced as Williams’ radio talk, and as politically iconoclastic. Robin Williams is one of the reasons to go see Good Morning Vietnam — as long as you don’t mind your humour raunchy. In a part virtually written for him, Willi- ams with his frenetic delivery keeps the stomach muscles aching as jibe follows dig in a cacophony of risque references and political-who-said-thats. And throughout it all, Williams’ face retains that look — with just a hint of a smirk — of boy- next-door innocence. And an innocent babe in the woods our boy is, despite his. wisecracks at the expense of Richard Nixon and other reac- tionaries of the day. He knows he’s a kind of renaissance man to his listeners — before you can say “on the air,” Cronau- er’s combination of hip multiple-voice chatter and hit parade music has the fan mail pouring in from all the GIs slugging it out in the rice paddies and jungles of The Nam. That means the new music man can get away with his brand of outrageousness, even when his superiors — one of which, Army Sgt.-Maj. Dickerson (J.T. Walsh), hates him with a cold-blooded passion — order him to cease and desist. But Cronauer is still an innocent because, when all is said and done, his wit merely tweaks the nose of authority. He hasn’t even caught a whiff of the beast that a U.S. Army disc jockey Adrian Cronauer (Robin Williams) takes in the sights of Saigon with sidekick Garlick (Forest Whitaker) in Good Morning Vietnam. is the insidiously escalating war against Vietnam. That’s the other reason to see Good Morning Vietnam: for all its raw humour this film also has subtlety and sincere drama in making its point that the United States really had no busness being in Vietnam, even if that message is a little fudged. Cronauer gets wiser when he finds that he can’t read news on the air until it has passed the army censors. Almost rou- tinely, the wire copy that comes offa bank of teletype machines i purged of most references to the “conflict” — in those days, Vietnam was not referred to as a war — or such stories are sanitized ‘beyond recognition. It’s not surprising that the army cuts them. Many of those stories, of military defeats and sabotages right in the heart of Saigon, are bad news from the Pentagon’s point of view. But Cronauer is simply amused at this inter- ference with truth, until one of the cen- sored incidences involves himself. That happens when a servicemen’s bar he’s just departed explodes from a sabo- teur’s bomb. After spending several hours in hell picking up the wounded and the dead, Cronauer is due to go on the air for his evening show. Sure enough, the story of the bombing is on the wire back at the station. Sure enough, he’s ordered not to read it. He does anyway, after finding he is too traumatized to deliver the usually delight- fully inane chatter. He relates the incident by listing the details as “not officially” happening, until his superiors shut off the transmission. It is one of the best dramatic moments of the film, and marks the turn- ing point in Cronauer’s thinking. For all his anti-authoritarianism and spontaneity, Cronauer in essence has been just another imperialist. When he wants something — the company of prostitutes in a bar, or an impromptu post teaching English as a second language — he waves his money around. He flouts authority, but has not questioned why his country is invading another nation. He’s told as much by his new-found friend Tuan (Tung Thanh Tran), whose sister Trinh (Thai actress Chintara Sukap- atana) Cronauer covets. Tuan is not initially impressed by the fast-talking American, although the two do become friends when Tuan realizes there is depth of character behind the patter. Cronauer, for his part, has his beliefs shaken to the root when he learns the secret of Tuan. Good Morning Vietnam is the kind of film that refutes racism, which is another reason to go see it. Director Barry Levin- son’s close-up, warts-and-all style of cine- matography isn’t afraid to look the Vietnamese right in the eye and show them as human beings. Similarly, the film eschews stereotypes. Black characters like Edward Garlick (Forest Whitaker), a large, amiable man with a broad vocabu- lary, give well-rounded, textured perfor- mances. This film gives the impression that it is against the Vietnam War, and in that sense it’s like most others in the genre. That is, the message is ambiguous. Cronauer is told that it’s the U.S. soldiers, not the Vietnamese people, who are “the enemy.” But the audience has been given little indi- cation of that truth en route to the climac- tic remark. And we’ve seen little of the atrocities committed by U.S. troops that would reinforce the point. Good Morning Vietnam is best with its images: the time-worn features of elderly Vietnamese who confront Cronauer with their silence in a village square; the chatter of the teletype machines increasing in volume to underscore the point that wha- tever they spew out, they are basically talk- ing to themselves. — Dan Keeton People’s Co-op Bookstore May Day Greetings to all from our members 25% off all labour books with this coupon Offer expires May 7, 1988 1391 Commercial Drive, Vancouver, B.C. VSL 3K5 Phone: 253-6442 For all your travel needs, big or small. Let Globe Tours find the best way for you. GLOBE TOURS 2720 E. Hastings St. Vancouver, B.C. Phone 253-1221 May Day Greetings from Globe Tours Pacer pe Rae Be PRE BSE EST RY RT FSET EE RET ON I Re Fo ST TE Pacific Tribune, April 27, 1988 « 29