Released in 2018, Green Book (Green’s Book) will arguably go down as one of the most contested Best Picture Oscar winners in the history of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Romeor The Favorite (The favorite), having demonstrated more excellence in cinema that year. With this victory, Peter Farrelly’s film joined the ranks of controversial winners, such as Shakespeare in Love (Shakespeare and Juliet), which beat Saving Private Ryan (We have to save the soldier Ryan), and Crashwhich supplanted Brokeback Mountain (Memories of Brokeback Mountain) and Munich. Four years later, Farrelly returns with The Greatest Beer Run Ever (A beer at the front), a film that takes up, strategically, many aspects of his previous film.
The result, it is clear, is inconclusive. For memory, Green Book won the People’s Choice Award at TIFF, which gave him a boost for the Oscars. Conversely, The Greatest Beer Run Ever was received with indifference when it recently premiered at the same festival.
Green Book told the true story of Frank “Tony Lip” Vallelonga, a macho Italian-American with racist tendencies who, in the 1960s, was hired as a driver and bodyguard by the black — and homosexual — pianist Don Shirley during his a tour of the segregationist South.
Rebelote, if you want, with The Greatest Beer Run Ever, also based on an amazing true story, also set in the 1960s and also set against a troubled time in American history. This time, we follow a certain John “Chickie” Donohue (Zac Efron, caricature). Enlisted in the merchant navy, but above all busy drinking every evening at the local bar in New York, to the chagrin of his parents, with whom he still lives, Chickie is convinced that the war his country is waging against “the communists” in Vietnam is justified. This, despite the growing number of repatriated remains.
However, when a close friend loses his life barely arrived there, Chickie decides, motivated both by a desire to do useful work and by a feeling of guilt, to embark on the next liner bound for Vietnam. in order to… deliver beer to mobilized local guys.
A divisive subject
Obviously, Chickie’s political convictions will be shaken (a bit like those of Robin Williams’ character in Good Morning Vietnam) and, obviously again, the dangers of blind patriotism will be revealed to him in a terrible way.
During her wanderings, Chickie will meet Coates, a photojournalist critical of the conflict (an underutilized Russell Crowe who steals the show whenever he appears). In a rather gratifying conversation, Coates explains to Chickie that the job of journalists is not to “reassure people”, but to seek out and then publish the truth, however painful or embarrassing it may be. Here, the response to Trump’s apostles and his denunciation of “ lying media (misleading media) is clear.
Throughout, however, one senses Farrelly wanting to cut corners so as not to alienate any part of the audience, as the Vietnam War remains a divisive topic for many in the United States. The director denounces the turpitudes of Washington, but largely idealizes (as he did in Green Book) the historical context.
Behind the camera, and despite substantial resources, Farrelly does not impress. This applies as much to the dialogue sequences as to the action sequences, none being particularly well staged. The film also has no rhythm, in addition to being far too long for the little it has to tell. Not enough to give a hangover, but almost.