Good Morning, Vietnam
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Good Morning, Vietnam is a 1987 comedy/drama film set in Saigon during the Vietnam War, based on the career of Adrian Cronauer, a disc jockey on Armed Forces Radio Saigon (AFRS), who proves hugely popular with the troops serving in South Vietnam, but infuriates his superiors with what they call his "irreverent tendency".
Cronauer is played by Robin Williams. It also stars Forest Whitaker, Tung Thanh Tran, Chintara Sukapatana, Bruno Kirby, Robert Wuhl, J.T. Walsh and Noble Willingham. The movie was written by Mitch Markowitz and directed by Barry Levinson.
It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role (Robin Williams).
Most of Robin Williams' humorous radio broadcasts were improvised. The movie was shot in Bangkok, Thailand.
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Synopsis
Arrival in Vietnam
Wearing "Cretan camouflage", radio announcer Adrian Cronauer emerges from the air-conditioned US Air Force airliner taking him to his new assignment in sweltering Saigon, where fellow enlisted man Eddie Garlic prepares to drive him to the radio station. Garlic, hugely overweight, turns the ignition key even though the engine is already on.
Upon arrival in Army Lieutenant Steven Houck's office, Cronauer immediately encounters a nemesis in Sergeant Major Dickerson. "Where is this man's paperwork?" he thunders, and Houck obsequiously hands over Cronauer's orders to Dickerson. The conversation goes steadily downhill from there, as Dickerson starts dicking Cronauer around about his clothes: "This is not standard issue, Airman!" Cronauer infuriates Dickerson with thinly veiled mock respect and razor-sharp humor, calling him Sir ("I work for a living! What does three up and three down mean to you?" "End of an inning?")
On the air
Garlic wakes Cronauer the next morning, and the jet-lagged disk jockey struggles to gain sufficient consciousness for his 6:00 A.M. show ("I'm not even in my body yet, I may have to hurt you.") Garlic laughs this off and escorts Cronauer to the cramped studio, rapidly introducing him to the General ("Garlic, have you put on weight? Why the shadow of your ass must weigh twenty pounds.") and the eerie twin news censors ("Hiya."). At 0559 hours, Marty Dreiwitz challenges Cronauer: "Can you say something funny right now?" "I doubt it." Dreiwitz cackles with laughter and says, "By the way, you're on in ten seconds, nine, eight..."
At precisely 0600 hours, Cronauer switches his mic on, pauses as if totally lost, then half shouts and half croons, "Good morning, Viet Nammmmmmm!!" He follows this with a rapid fire, apparently ad-libbed stream of topical wisecracks ("This is not a test, this is rock and roll!"), pretends to play a record backwards ("Oof, neef, Freddy is the devil") and introduces the first song of his show: Nowhere to run to. Then he sits casually back, and modestly asks the other guys, "Too much?"
Cronauer continues to live life at a frenetic pace, making a hash of army regulations about what he can and cannot say or play over the air while amassing a huge following among the men in the field. Houck is jealous of his comedic ability, and Dickerson hates him because he gets away with being rebellious and disrespectful. But the General supports him ("I heard his show in Crete, and I busted a gut laughing.")
Life outside the studio
He spots a pretty Vietnamese girl and follows her to an English class, where he bribes the teacher to let him take over the class so he can meet the girl. ("What subject is this?" "Is it English?" "That's right! Thanks for playing!") Soon he has the entire class convulsed in laughter as he teaches them the way people talk on the streets of New York City. ("Slip me some skin" apparently does not mean a leper handing you a hunk of his face, and so on.)
The girl's brother stops him as he tries to follow her out of the class ("You forget the girl...You Americans are all alike, you find a girl with the shape breasts you like, put her in a fancy car, and take her to bed." "What's wrong with that?" "It's more devout here.") Cronauer switches from madcap humor to disarming honesty ("You got me, Sparky. Okay, I bribed my way into the class, but I'm going to stay.") and goes out with him for local food ("fish balls and lizard testicles").
At the club where the radio crew like to hang out, he brings his Vietnamese friend in, but two marines come over to start trouble after Cronauer bribes the bar girls to stop paying attention to the jar heads. "Who brought in the gook?" A fight ensues, and Cronauer is called on the carpet by Sergeant Major Dickerson ("A goddamned bar brawl: talk!" "These two behemoths were abusing a Vietnamese national...") Dickerson threatens Cronauer with an dangerous transfer ("Can you envision some fairly unpleasant alternatives?" "Not without slides.")
A terrorist incident
One afternoon, while Cronauer is drinking in the club, his Vietnamese friend suddenly arrives ("What are you doing here? My sister wants to meet you.") Moments after the pair leave the club, an explosion knocks them to the ground. Cronauer helps the local ambulance crew as rain falls on a corpse.
Returning to the studio, Cronauer furiously rips printouts from the news teletypes. Confronted in the hallway with a handful of unofficial news, he adopts an apologetic tone: "Sorry, I was dizzy, the air conditioning, thanks for straightening me out." Then he starts his show. "In news, officially nothing happened today. A bomb unofficially went off in Jimmy Wah's, and 4 G.I.'s unofficially died." Dickerson tries to get in and stop him, but Cronauer had locked himself in the studio, so Dickerson orders the engineer to turn off the transmitter. Cronauer is suspended from broadcasting.
On suspension
The general refuses to discipline Cronauer ("He made a mistake. For now, suspend him.") Dickerson suggests that Lieutenant Houck take over the Cronauer show, and his staff begs him not to: "Sir, you're not funny." "Then why were you laughing when you were typing my jokes?" "I was thinking of something else." Houck adopts a terrible French accent, makes some awfully lame puns, and plays polkas.
Phone calls and letters pour into the station, demanding that Houck be taken off the air and Cronauer put back. Garlic reads one: "Hock sucks the sweat from a dead man's balls. I don't know what that means, but it sounds pretty negative to me, sir." "I think the men are trying to tell us something."
Over Dickerson's misgivings, the General puts Cronauer back on the air. ("This is a tempest in a teapot, much ado about nothing. Reinstate the man.") Meanwhile, Dickerson plots his revenge.
Feeling dejected after recent events, Cronauer takes to hanging out in a local restaurant and drinking. He puts shrimp on the tips of his fingers, and sings, "Set me free, why don't you, babe?" The waiter comes up and asks him why he drinks so much, and his Vietnamese friend translates. "I drink, so I can be this funny." "He say, 'You not funny at all.'"
They drive out to the village where his friend lives. He soothes a crying baby with his amazing comedic ability, wearing a kettle top as a hat and singing nonsense. He tries to see the girl, but she tells him, "Vietnamese lady not friends. My country maybe no future."
Eddie Garlic tries to get Cronauer to do his show again, but Cronauer refuses ("I'm going to phone it in. I'm out of here.") Garlic tracks him down in a restaurant and confronts him ("What the @#$! A lot of guys went to the mat for you." "Eddie, that's two rude words in one year.") Driving back to their compound, they're caught in traffic behind a GI truck convoy. Garlic has an inspiration.
"Hey, guys, guess who I got here?" "Don't do this." "I've got the one and only Adrian Cronauer." "You're a dead man, Garlic."
One soldier calls from the back of a truck, "How do we know it's him?" Another asks him to say "Good morning, Vietnam". Cronauer tries to beg off ("C'mon, guys, it's too hot for radio @#$%.") Finally, he gives in and puts on a brief show, replete with Mick Jagger imitations. He asks several of the men to introduce themselves and wishes them luck in the field. It ends when a corporal comes out and shouts, "Say goodbye to the radio star. We're out of here!"
Trip to An Lac
Dickerson suggests Cronauer interview some men in the field, taking the precaution to question military intelligence about the safety of the area he's going to. It's definitely not safe, so Dickerson recommends giving a 24-hour pass to Cronauer and Garlic. Their jeep is bombed, and the two wander in the jungle for hours while their friends in the city wonder what happened to them.
Cronauer's Vietnamese friend asks one of the disk jockeys where he went. They question the one of the guards at the entrance to the compound. When he hears, "An Lac", he breaks into a run, steals a car and races off.
He finds them in the jungle, where they've been walking in circles, as a youthful commando squad lurks nearby. The car won't start, so they head back on foot and flag down a helicopter. Cronauer acts like a girl trying to hitch a ride. ("Hello, sailor!")
Last day in country
Back in Saigon, Cronauer is confronted by Dickerson one final time ("Boy, I got your pansy ass in a sling, now. You're on a DC-9 at 1600 hours tomorrow.")
Cronauer still doesn't get it. ("Why are you doing this?" "Isn't it strange how a Vietnamese boy is able to get in and out of VC territory? Didn't you wonder how he got you out of that bar moments before it blew up, or are you normally not that inquisitive?" "You're crazy, he's not a terrorist." "These are photographs of terrorists, executed by South Vietnamese police. Your friend is next: Phan Duc To.")
Cronauer finds his friend's sister and asks where he is. She says she doesn't know. He explains carefully, "The police know about your brother. They are going to kill him. If you want to continue to have a brother, take me to him now!"
They go to a really run-down neighborhood of filthy back alleys, the underbelly of a third world city. Cronauer has to make sure of what Dickerson told him, calling out "Phan Duc To", and his Vietnamese friend runs. Cronauer chases him at top speed, but the well-prepared spy disappears into a courtyard. Cronauer confronts his hidden friend verbally.
"They know about the bombing, Sparky. I have to leave the country because of my association with you. I fought to get you into that bar, and you blew it up. My friend is the goddamned enemy."
"Enemy? Who is the enemy? You think we're little Vietnamese. You're the enemy."
"This is not going to look good on a resume!"