Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Greatest Beer Run Ever’ on Apple TV+, a True-Story Dramedy in Which Zac Efron Schleps Brews to His Pals in the Vietnam War

Funny how Peter Farrelly shifted from taboo-taunting comedy like Kingpin to feelgood BOATS (Based On A True Story) moosh like The Greatest Beer Run Ever (now on Apple TV+). It worked well the first time for the veteran filmmaker – his simplistic parable on racism in America, 2018’s Green Book, earned him a Best Picture win, so why not do it again by tackling the quandaries of patriotism during the Vietnam War via the story of a guy who schlepped all the way to the war zone to deliver beer to his buddies? Zac Efron stars, and Russell Crowe shows up for a bit here and a longer bit there, and Farrelly makes sure there are scenes with lots of sticky-warm feelings in them, at the cost of them being at all memorable.

THE GREATEST BEER RUN EVER: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: Chickie Donohue (Efron) ain’t got much goin’ on. He’s between jobs as an oiler on merchant ships; he goes out with the guys alla time, rackin’ up tabs at the local bars that he can’t pay; he’s always sleepin’ in. He lives with his parents and when his pops (Paul Adelstein) says hey wake up ya lazy bum, Chickie’s reply is, “I’ll stay awake when I’m dead.” He lives in Inwood, a working-class NYC neighborhood whose grunt-soldier representation in the Vietnam War is pretty high. His sister (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) goes to anti-war protests. His gruff bartender pal the Colonel (Bill Murray) thinks the media is doing a disservice to American soldiers by reporting on the brutality and moral queasiness of the war – Our Boys are just doing their patriotic duty and fighting for the American Way, right?

And all Chickie’s doin’ is nothin’, really. He spent some time in the military, but never left Massachusetts. He argues with his parents, argues with his sister and keeps getting bad news about his buddies, who are either coming home in a coffin or missing in action. He wishes he could do something. One day he’s gripping a cold PBR with the guys and declares his intention to just go over there to Vietnam and bring his friends a beer. That’d cheer ’em up, let ’em know that people back home are thinkin’ about ’em. Everyone laughs except the Colonel, who takes it seriously: “The man is stone sober – that’s his fifth beer, tops!” Of course, Chickie’s half-assed about all this. But his friends remind him that he never follows through on anything, and word gets out to the folks in the neighborhood, who want him to deliver socks and rosaries and whatnot to their sons and brothers. And it just so happens there’s a ship chugging to Vietnam with a load of ammo, and it needs an oiler.

So just like that, Chickie’s committed. He stuffs a duffel bag with cans a’ PBR and heads ta ’Nam. Two months pass without even a montage or nothin’, and Chickie’s fibbin’ his way to his buddies, saying one of them’s his stepbrotha, and maybe even passing as a CIA agent who can’t talk about his shit. I don’t know how he does it, but he does it. He gets lucky here and is kinda smart there and before you know it, he’s cracking a lukewarm one with ol’ Wojohowitzskistein or whoever, and dodgin’ bullets, and ridin’ helipcopters, and fallin’ in with a war correspondent (Crowe), and sleepin’ in a trench in a rainstorm that becomes a shitstorm, and findin’ himself in the middle of the Tet Offensive and – this is the important part – maybe learnin’ a thing or three about this war and the world and himself.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: At least we don’t hear Wagner thundering on the soundtrack as Chickie whup-whup-whups over the jungle. Beer Run borrows a thimbleful of fodder from Vietnam War films like Platoon and Full Metal Jacket and a Nyquil cup of stuff from disillusioned-soldier stories a la Only the Brave or American Sniper – or maybe even Hal Ashby’s masterful The Last Detail and Richard Linklater’s underrated sister film Last Flag Flying, both of which address the average enlisted man’s military experience with the intricacy it deserves.

Performance Worth Watching: Efron has been stretching himself lately (Gold uglies him up something fierce, and Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile cast him as Ted Bundy), and Beer Run continues that trend. He’s an affable presence, capable of delivering comedy and pathos within a few beats, and shows flashes of depth despite the script’s frustrating limitations.

Memorable Dialogue: A sergeant guy looks at Chickie as he sits in the dirt chasing PBRs that fell out of his bag: “Don’t worry about him. Every once in a while you run into a guy who’s too dumb to get killed.”

Sex and Skin: None.

Our Take: So a bunch of what happens in this story is actually true, in a stranger-than-fiction kind of way. But Farrelly puts a veneer of artifice overtop Chickie’s crazy experiences in pursuit of watery truisms: All this CHANGES Chickie FOREVER. He learns the Vietnam War is More Complicated Than That, “That” being whatever you thought it was all the way over here in America. There are Hard Lessons to be learned. The conclusion he comes to? “I’m gonna do a little less drinkin’, and a little more thinkin’,” he says, summing up the Vietnam War by cramming it onto the surface area of an embroidered throw pillow, wedging it into a fortune cookie, stuffing it into a greeting card. Please – groan away, groan away.

Then again, criticizing The Greatest Beer Run Ever is like scolding a puppy for not having the wherewithal to grab a shovel and scoop its own dookie. Chickie bounds around, wide-eyed and naive, grinning, hiding under a tarp to surprise the guys, cocking his head and letting an ear flop when he sees a curious scene, romping through the dirt and panting heavy in the heat, getting dewey and sad-eyed when the weight of the world gets heavy, sits and stays when the trainer played by Russell Crowe says so. And then he comes home housetrained in the ways of the world. It’d be easier to just pee on the carpet, but life is hard and sometimes you have to go out in the cold, hard world and shiver while you whiz.

Apologies for torturing the metaphor, but who doesn’t like a puppy? They’re adorable and annoying, just like this movie. Well, maybe it’s not adorable – amiable, sometimes huggable and deserving a head-pat for warming a cockle. But it doesn’t add much to any greater discourse about Vietnam, or any of the morally dubious war-debacles the U.S. has fought in the decades since. The screenplay doesn’t have much to say that isn’t an inch deep and obvious, and Efron struggles to find a solid foothold with his character. Chickie is sort of a Goofus who becomes a Gallant, except with no real extremes in his behavior, or any passion for anything. He just goes with it like an anemic Forrest Gump. It’s as if he’s modeled on the ideal middle-of-the-road common American man – a literal Joe Six-Pack, you might say.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The Greatest Beer Run was an acceptably mediocre blend of doofus comedy and war drama – but the schmaltz gets a little too deep down the stretch. Some will appreciate it for its warmth, but it’s ultimately too dumbed-down for its own good.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com.