Zac Efron and Russell Crowe star in this based on fact story about a man on a suds-driven mission in Vietnam in 1968.
Peter Farrelly became famous co directing broad comedies with his brother Bobby most notably the Dumb and Dumber movies 1994, 2014 and the wondrous Theres Something About Mary 1998. On his own he has been doing something very different laying claim to the 60s. First there was Green Book 2018 which is about the civil rights movement sort of. It managed to win a best picture Oscar. Oh those Academy members. Now theres The Greatest Beer Run Ever about the Vietnam War more than sort of.
Its the autumn of 1967 and Zac Efron plays Chickie an Irish guy from Inwood, in upper Manhattan. Angered by an antiwar protest he announces in his favorite bar that he has going to bring some brew to his buddies in Vietnam. This sounds ridiculous. It is ridiculous. But its based on a true story that favorite get out of jail card for filmmakers to play. No no this really did happen so you can not say my movie is unbelievable.
Here we have an unsolvable cinematic mystery. A great movie or even just a good one can take something utterly implausible So this kid puts a cute little outer space creature on the handlebars of his bike and they fly? and make it seem as immediate as your happiest memory. On the other hand a bad movie can take actual events and make them seem as phony as well The Greatest Beer Run Ever.
The relatively easy part for Chickie is getting over to Vietnam. Since he has in the Merchant Marine he can ship out on a freighter heading there. He has a bag with what would seem to be about three dozen cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon in it. Have you ever lugged around three dozen cans of anything let alone in a war zone? Yes Chickies mission takes him far from Saigon though even Saigon is not as it seems since his arrival coincides with Tet the Vietnamese lunar new year. If you need the relevance of that fact explained Beer Run probably is not a movie for you. Of course if you do not need it explained then its probably not the movie for you in a different way.
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