The Greatest Beer Run Ever movie review (2022)

Based on the book by Joanna Molloy and John “Chickie” Donohue, “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” tells the latter’s true story of a misguided delivery to an active international conflict, where he learned, "Yes, Vietnam was bad." Chickie, a miscast ZacEfron, is a New York City resident in 1967. His dad makes fun of him for sleeping in and lack of motivation. Chickie spends most of his time at a bar with his friends, even while he watches his friends go to Vietnam and never return home. When one of his closest allies goes M.I.A., Chickie has a crazy idea one drunken evening—what if he brought all of his buddies a beer? To show NYC that NYC still loves them. Chickie is encouraged by his barmates, including a speechifying Bill Murray proprietor, to board a cargo ship bound for 'Nam to search for the men. He only needs to spend two months on a ship, meet people in large countries in the middle of war, give them some encouragement suds, then find his way back home. It's not a problem.

Chickie is fighting Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, his sister, over the at-home war response. They argue that protests reduce the sacrifice of the men on ground. And he says directly to press members he meets in Vietnam, including one played by Russell Crowe named Arthur Coates, that they’re only reporting on the bad stuff from the war. He’s there to bring some light to a dark situation, and to remind the boys that they’re supported. Of course, anyone who’s seen a movie or read a book understands that Chickie is going to learn a harsh lesson about the truth of actual war while he’s on his beer run, and here’s where Farrelly’s limited range as a filmmaker becomes a significant problem.

Someone says about Chickie, “Every once in a while, you run into a guy who’s too dumb to get killed.” It’s meant to be a humorous line, but it reveals the foundational flaw of “The Greatest Beer Run Ever” in that Chickie is written and played poorly. He needs to be almost a Hal Ashby character, someone pushed through the world in a way that reflects the kind of ignorance that often keeps people alive, but he’s sketched instead as a working-class hero, a heartfelt guy who’s more courageous than stupid. This is a difficult sell. There’s a vastly superior version of this film that’s more comfortable mocking Chickie’s naïveté instead of using it for heartfelt speeches about dying friends.