The Greatest Beer Run Ever
2022
*½
Director: Peter Farrelly
Cast: Zac Efron, Russell Crowe, Bill Murray, Jake Picking, Will Ropp, Archie Renaux, Kyle Allen, Ruby Ashbourne Serkis, Omari K. Chancellor, Kevin K. Tran
In 1967, a well-meaning New Yorker, Chick Donahue, decides to cheer up his friends serving in Vietnam by bringing them beer. The lighthearted mission becomes an eye-opening experience for the young man. Peter Farrelly's follow-up to Green Book is another crowd-pleaser set in the 1960s. This may be a true story, but it doesn’t make a believable drama, comedy, or anything else. The main problem is that Chick is dumber than Forrest Gump and never seems to get smarter, even as he learns the grim realities of conflict and comes to accept that the US government may not be honest about the actual state of the war. The script is awful, and the resulting film feels endless. Based on the 2017 memoir The Greatest Beer Run Ever: A Memoir of Friendship, Loyalty, and War by John "Chick" Donohue and J.T. Molloy.
