Who's in It: Ron Livingston, Michael Sheen, Melissa George, Rebecca De Mornay
The Basics: "Based on the true story" of Richard Pimentel, a man who lost his hearing in Vietnam after a bomb exploded near him. Pimentel spent the next 20 years working tirelessly for the rights of the disabled, alongside his friend Art Honeyman, a man with cerebral palsy. But you have to wonder if, even at his angriest, he ever scolded people as much as this does in its retro-triumphant "wasn't everyone awful back then?" way.
What's the Deal? Someone, somewhere, thought it was a good idea to make a biopic out of this man's deserves-to-be-told story. And then those people turned around and made the dopiest TV movie they possibly could, stacked the deck with heartwarming stuff that maybe never happened at all and were probably unhappy that someone else had gotten to the line, "I am not an animal! I'm a human being!" before they did.
Who's Trying Hard, and Who's Trying Harder: Livingston, as Pimentel, is basically unhateable. He gives off such decent "regular Joe" qualities and has that sad-dog face all the time that even when he's flailing around being inspirational, you just end up thinking, Oh well, actors have to work. Meanwhile, speaking of flailing, Sheen (he played Tony Blair in The Queen) goes whole hog with the affectations — minus the adjustments to his speech patterns so that his dialogue can be understood — and gives such a physically realistic performance as someone with cerebral palsy that it makes you wonder why they didn't just go and get an actor who really had it in the first place.
How You Know You're in the Cheap Seats:
1. Vietnam looks like the San Fernando Valley and comes equipped with literalist '60s pop songs like "We Gotta Get Outta This Place."
2. Music Within is the actual title. Seriously, MUSIC WITHIN.
3. Hippies in headbands and peasant shirts.
Pancakes of Discrimination: There's a crazy scene set in a pancake restaurant where everything that probably played out less obviously in reality comes to loud fictional life, as the waitress says to Sheen, "You are the ugliest, most disgusting thing I've ever seen. I thought people like you died at birth. How do you expect people to eat around you? People shouldn't even have to look at you." And then Sheen and Livingston are arrested for even going into the place. Even better, they go back 20 years later, get served pancakes at the same table, and jovially sexually harass a different waitress. So that's, uh, progress.