War cinema is a big part of Hollywood. The 20th century has a diverse amount of war movies for all kinds of audiences to enjoy, from war stories with themes of devout American Patriotism to ones with ant-war sentiments. In the end, each authentic war film has the same message: War is Hell. My favorite quote from a war film is a line from Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket: “The dead only know one thing: it is better to be alive.”

There are many memorable moments in War Cinema people still talk about today, from the ultra-violent, realistic storming of Omaha Beach during the Battle of Normandy in Steven Spielberg’s excellent movie Saving Private Ryan (1998) to the disturbing, but epic “Ride of the Valkyries” scene in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

For most movies about a war there’s always a story about a mission that needs to be accomplished for the war effort, and what kind of Hell the main characters go through to accomplish what they’re ordered to do. Director Peter Farrelly, for a follow-up to his Oscar winning film The Green Book (2018), brings us a war film like no other. Seriously, the plot for this film is so ridiculously insane, a screenwriter must have come up with it while drunk at a bar on their birthday after many failed pitches to so many studios. It can’t be a true story. No way.

The story is this: “In 1967, John Donohue (Zac Efron) was a 26-year-old U.S. Marine Corps veteran working as a merchant seaman when he was challenged one night in a New York City bar. The men gathered had lost family and friends in the ongoing war in Vietnam. The bartender (Bill Murray) proposed an idea many might deem preposterous: one of them should sneak into Vietnam, track down their buddies in combat, and give each of them messages of support from back home, maybe some laughs, and beer.“

Crazy story, right? It can’t be actually true, right? Well, no, because it actually happened. John Donahue is a real person, and he really did do a beer run in the middle of the Vietnam War. The ultimate message of this film is simple: respect and support the veterans of war, because after going through Hell to survive what they’re ordered to do, they’ll need all the support here at home. The movie will stream on Apple+ on September 30th.

Below is an interview with the actual John “Chickie” Donohue talking about the greatest beer run I’ve ever heard of.