Truish story with Zac Efron as Chickie Donahue, a naive, flag waving, all American boy who decides to take beers over to his buddies in Vietnam, hideously unaware of the reality of the situation who learns some crucial and difficult lessons.
Certainly the messages and lessons learnt are pummelled home with a sledge hammer and in that respect we've seen much of the same stuff before and better. That said, this sort of road movie within Vietnam is well crafted, particularly in the scenes set towards the end of the film in Saigon with Russell Crowe along, doing a familiar turn as the war correspondent whose seen it all, to show Efron what's really going on. Efron in fact is actually pretty good in all this moving from patriotic idiot to more worldly wise, eventually returning home to impart his new found wisdom. Great soundtrack.
Certainly the messages and lessons learnt are pummelled home with a sledge hammer and in that respect we've seen much of the same stuff before and better. That said, this sort of road movie within Vietnam is well crafted, particularly in the scenes set towards the end of the film in Saigon with Russell Crowe along, doing a familiar turn as the war correspondent whose seen it all, to show Efron what's really going on. Efron in fact is actually pretty good in all this moving from patriotic idiot to more worldly wise, eventually returning home to impart his new found wisdom. Great soundtrack.