Golf Thanaporn/Apple TV+
War is hell, and so too is The Greatest Beer Run Ever, Peter Farrelly’s follow-up to 2018’s Best Picture-winning Green Book, whose glib and corny template it duplicates to dismal ends. Another 1960s-set based-on-real-events tale about conservative-liberal frictions in a divided country that involves a road trip through enemy territory and concludes with empty can’t-we-all-get-along platitudes, it’s a pat and wishy-washy rehash of the director’s prior hit, except with a Saving Private Ryan hook and a sitcom-grade wartime sheen.
Premiering at the Toronto International Film Festival before landing in theaters and—aptly, given its limp visuals—Apple TV+ on September 30, The Greatest Beer Run Ever is the story of John “Chickie” Donahue” (Zac Efron), a 26-year-old Merchant Marine-turned-layabout in 1967 Inwood, New York. Chickie, who spends his days sleeping at his parents’ house and his nights drinking at the neighborhood pub with his buddies, is a going-nowhere loser who’s meant to be winning because he’s played by Efron, who boasts a goofy Welcome Back Kotter mustache and exudes aww-shucks charm with maximum effort and minimal results. Though he’s disconnected from life, Chickie is a staunch supporter of the Vietnam War—aligning him with his mates, his parents and old-school bartender The Colonel (Bill Murray), but puts him at odds with his sister Christine (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, daughter of Andy), who’s in with a protesting crowd that Chickie and his moron pal decide to fight.
Chickie spouts bromides about how the U.S. government must know what it’s doing, and that criticism of the war (by hippies and the media) is inherently bad because it undercuts the nation’s chances for success—dumb takes that sound even dumber coming out of know-nothing Chickie’s mouth. One night, he seizes upon a jokey remark by the Colonel and agrees to support the troops—and, in particular, those servicemen hailing from Inwood—by going overseas and bringing them cans of beer transported in one of the Colonel’s duffle bags. Everyone thinks Chickie is full of it, both because this is an idiotic idea and because Chickie never follows through on anything he starts, be it a job, school or getting out of bed for church. Mocked by his friends and relatives, he decides to prove them all wrong by doing “something,” and thanks to his (oft-derided) military credentials, he hops aboard a transport ship and is in Saigon in no time flat with a stash of domestic brews.