Film Review - Green Book (2019)

Green Book is based off of the true story of Tony Vallelonga (Viggo Mortensen) who works as a Bouncer in the Copabanca bar in 1960s New York when he has to find a new job and as it turns out he is offered a driving job for Dr Don Shirley (Maehershala Ali) as he performs in the deep south of the United States, a part of the country that is still heavily segregated.

Green Book works best when it focuses on the friendship and the chemistry between its two lead characters and actors, though it takes a while for their chemistry to develop when it does the film is great to watch as Mr Ali and Mr Mortensen play off each other very well and as the film goes on you can see the depth of their friendship start to develop.

Sadly the film they find themselves in has some serious issues in regards to its tone as a lot of the time the laughs the film tends to go for tend to be of the “Ah hoh hoh hoh” variety and what I mean by that as opposed to the traditional “ha ha ha” laugh is that while your laughing your also feeling a little cringey at the same time and scenes like the Fried Chicken one that’s in the previews for the film were that type of comedy and at that same time it was to be serious about 1960s America and the segregation that went on especially down south and the two streams don’t cross very well and as a result while I enjoyed myself the tonal shifts did bother me.

And so that was my review of Green Book and it’s an enjoyable enough film but it has some serious tonal issues, 2 and a half out of 5.