Character: Al (The Best Friend)

Ready for a weird, what is happening right now, movie? Well, this movie isn’t it. It is pretty straight forward in the plot and storyline. So, we have Birdy (Matthew Modine) who is in a mental hospital thinking he is a bird. The hospital is not sure how to help him further as he is not responding to typical treatments, so they call in his best friend Al.

With Al, we reminisce of their time hanging out collecting pigeons in weird and scary places and putting them in a birdhouse of sorts they have built. We get some insight into Birdy’s weird obsession with birds as he creates bird costumes out of feathers from the birds he catches. We find out that they both went to Vietnam and the trauma is what has caused Birdy to regress into this “I’m a bird” behavior.

Al tries to remind Birdy of the times they hung out and his last resort is to bring Birdy a bunch of baseballs they never thought they would ever see again. He gets upset and breaks down begging Birdy to just give him a reaction. We get flashbacks throughout the movie, but this part, we get a flashback of what happened after prom. Birdy claims to have flown and Al’s response is like a high-pitched adorable, “You flew?” and it is instantly my favorite way to question anyone at any time. We also see how Greta, Birdy’s bird whom he is in love with (you read that right), flies head on into his window and dies right when Al leaves for Vietnam.

The Vietnam flashbacks are particularly gory and will rattle your senses with all the noise and screams, as it should; it is war. We see an injured Birdy nearly get bombed and this is his breaking point; cue screams while a giant flock of birds flies overhead. And we’re back to the hospital. Birdy is crying and Al comforts him. This is good news for our boys as Birdy’s behavior is human for the first time. Al breaks down about the lacerations to his face that he suffered from a shell blowing up in his face. He is angry and scared that his face will be unrecognizable. Birdy is finally Birdy saying, “you’re so full of shit.” Birdy does not talk when he needs to and a fight breaks out between Al and the orderlies who are trying to remove Al. He refuses to leave Birdy and they make a break for it. They go to the roof and Birdy jumps from one level to the next level. Al is mortified as he is unaware that there is a lower level. He runs over to the edge and Birdy says, “What?’” Roll credits to La Bamba.

Overall, this movie is a tale of buddies. They rely on each other at several time throughout the movie and we see that it will continue. If you need a feel good movie, this is a good one with which to kill time.