I still don’t think Green Book was that bad.
Admittedly, I haven’t seen it since I reviewed it for FilmInk, and I definitely agree that it did not deserve Best Picture at the Oscars (even with how little I care for the ceremonies, that decision still managed to annoy me)… but I dunno, I didn’t mind the film itself. I have respect for the way the Farrelly brothers deal with disability and societal attitudes towards the ‘stupid’ and ‘crazy’, and I think Peter managed to effectively translate that empathy towards the effects of racism in that film. I mean, I recognise that it’s part of a less-than-ideal tradition in Hollywood concerning such stories, but for what it is, I think it got a worse rap than it ultimately deserved. Only time will tell if his latest will suffer the same fate, but once again, I find myself on the favourable side with his work.
Based on a real stranger-than-fiction event, it’s easy to see why Farrelly would be attracted to the story of Chickie Donohue (here played by Zac Efron), as it relies on the same kind of disbelief at just how thoughtless a person can be about their actions that he made his mark with in Dumb & Dumber. And here, that takes the form of Chickie, after a few too many drinks, deciding that he is going to travel to Vietnam at the height of the war, and bring some beers for his friends on the front line. Honestly, it sounds like the kind of thing I’d think of, and I don’t say that to highlight myself as an especially good person. Rather, it’s because my want to do something nice for others often overrides the rational parts of my brain that might make me take a step back and realise, y’know what, maybe there are more sensible ways to do this.
To that end, the sense of male insecurity, the mentality where you feel that level of obligation to carry out something you thought up when you weren’t thinking that clearly in the first place, aligns quite well with the overall attitude towards the Vietnam War. It’s nothing audiences haven’t heard before, with the war itself being unjust but keeping its criticism aimed at the governments that carried it out, rather than at the soldiers fighting it for them. But it also fits with the larger attitude of doing something stupid out of social and moral pressure. Where the surrounding ‘encouragement’ pushes you so far into getting it done, no matter how much you might be immediately questioning it, that you eventually find yourself way too deep into the thick of it.
And that’s what ends up happening to Chickie, who manages to hitch and bluff his way to his mates… and then discovers the reality of what his neighbours are really dying for. Efron’s charisma on-screen combined with that aforementioned Dumb & Dumber “there’s no way he’s serious with this shit” energy definitely highlight the asininity of his mission here, but also highlight the strange kind of admirability in that action too. Entering the situation as someone who supported the war, and the political machine that let it carry on for as long as it had, even something as simple as shouting your friends a drink from halfway across the world is still more than most homeward supporters end up doing in war-time. Hell, even today, a lot of civilians aren’t always that clear as to why war is going on, let alone why there’s inherent heroism in people dying for those nebulous reasons.
While I think that the material doesn’t quite necessitate a two-hour run time, the material itself still works well enough. The performances are solid, especially from Efron as the well-meaning buffoon who has to learn the big lesson, the tone manages surprisingly well in seeing the light humour in such a dark and traumatising situation but without downplaying the tragedy of it all, and it makes for one of the more entertainingly bizarre examples of the ‘intent vs. results’ dynamic at work.
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