The Greatest Beer Run Ever

Despite its cheeky title and some outrageous true-life source material, The Greatest Beer Run Ever doesn’t bring much to the party.

Never finding the right tonal balance between broad comedy and heartfelt melodrama, this quirky Vietnam War saga from director Peter Farrelly (Green Book) might someday inspire a drinking game surrounding its abundant period cliches.

It chronicles the misadventures of John “Chickie” Donahue (Zac Efron), a slacker hangs out with his buddies in a working-class New York bar. As antiwar sentiment pervades the neighborhood, with his pacifist sister (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) among the protesters, Chickie maintains loyalty to the troops, mostly because of some neighborhood friends who are serving overseas.

To back up his beliefs, he wonders why he couldn’t pay them a morale-boosting visit to share a brewski from back home. What starts as a boastful joke between buddies winds up primarily as a journey of self-discovery for Chickie, who needs direction in his life and wants to prove himself to his disapproving parents.

As he packs a duffel bag, he never seems to grasp the danger to which he’s voluntarily subjecting himself: “I’m not gonna be fighting. I’m just delivering beers,” he claims.

Even after he navigates some tricky logistics to arrive unannounced on Vietnamese soil, Chickie remains brash yet naïve, recklessly driven by his own hubris. He manages to connect with some pleasantly surprised acquaintances, and gains clout when he’s mistaken for a CIA agent.

As the violence intensifies, Chickie inevitably gets a crash course in combat gravity and tragedy. At least when he distributes a six-pack in a foxhole under enemy fire, he has the courtesy to apologize for the cans not being chilled.

His personal redemption story is fueled by an unlikely lesson in courage and sacrifice. But do his magnanimous intentions outweigh his goofball antics?

Efron’s committed performance positions Chickie as a resourceful tour guide whose eccentric co-stars include Russell Crowe as a grizzled photojournalist and Bill Murray as a patriotic bartender.

Filled with exaggerations and embellishments, the glib screenplay — based on a Donohue’s memoir — limits the sociopolitical context and moral complexity, which reduces the emotional resonance. Plus, it bogs down in heavy-handed contrivances in the second half.

The result might have been eye-opening and profound for Chickie, but almost 60 years later, The Greatest Beer Run Ever won’t have the same effect on moviegoers.

Rated R, 126 minutes.