Post by AOD on Feb 7, 2002 16:39:52 GMT -5
Platoon(1986)
Directed by Oliver Stone
Staring: Charlie Sheen,Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe,Forest Whitaker,Johnny Depp,Tony Todd, John Mcguinly,reggie Johnson and Chris Pederson.
Plot: Chris(Sheen) arrives in vietnam after enlisting in the army. It is there he is confronted with the harsh realities of war. After surviving his initial and outcast first few weeks he is accepted as one of the boys. Things are hell but it cant get worse right…….right. Wrong, in a rutine patrol through the jungle one of the their number goes missing. They find him 1000 yards down river tided to a tree, missing at least 7 pints of the bodies normal 9 pint dosage of blood. The fury felt by the platoon is ripe as they arrive in a small gook village. The people there are found to be harboring wepons and food for the viet cong. They claim that there was nothing they could do, the cong forced them and killed their chief. Well now it’s the turn of the Americans. Barnes(Berenger) questions the tribal leader about the wepons. When he doesn’t get the answers he wants he murders his wife. Then with a gun at the little girls head questions again. It is there that the battle “of 2 fathers” begins. Elias(Dafoe) gets into a scuffle with barnes over the murder of the woman and swears justice will be done on the overly battle hardened Sargent.
An all out civil war ensues within the platoon, half with Barnes, Half with Elias. What follows is by far one of the most historic later halfs of any movies.
My Opinion. What can you say about platoon that would even come close to doing it justice. Its my fav movie of all time. The acting is for lack of a better word is perfect. The score-breathtaking and heart movingly subdue. The plot-perfectly executed. The winner of 4 oscars platoon deserves respect for what it is. The best damn vietnam movie ever. Now lets talk about why??. One reason I feel is the realism. When the movie came out the language was criticized as being over frequent and unneccisary. That the somber and uncaring moods of the men were unrealistic. How the fuck do they know. Oliver Stone however does!! Stone served in vietnam and I believe that this is the single biggest factor that make Platoon great. He knows first hand what the men are feeling and the realism of being in combat. Another trait that he showed in his other oscar winning nam movie “Born on the forth of july” hmmmmmm im beginning to see a pattern here, Stone + 2 nam movies + 2 different sets of mutiple oscars = critics don’t know shit.
The battle for Chris’s soul bewteen the 2 combat hardened veterains is the main feature of the movie and culmintes in maybe the single saddest and moving scene in any movie I can remember. I still get chills when I hear that music(which was also used to amazing effect in the elephant man). Sub- features of the movie include, the fact that the American Troops commited just as much attrocities as the Cong during the war. That with all the technology and resources the will to keep their country made the vietnamise a formidable opponent. The suicide bombers, the “I will die to protect my beliefs” attitude of the cong compaired with the “why am I here I don’t want to die for my countries beliefs” attitude of the American troops. Also we cover the fact that war changes a man. When Chris arrives in Nam he is a polite well spoken nice kid, when he leaves he is a foul mouthed man with battle scars both physical and mental. He has killed, he has murdered, he has seen hell and lived. Then there are people like Bunny, who is there because he wants to be, he enjoys the combat and the killing. Did the war make him into that or was it society to blame. Platoon shits on the social conscience of the time period of the late 60’s in America.
It covers all aspects of the human psyche, from fear, to love, to hate, to joy. Not a bad feat for a 2 hour trip.
Another aspect of Platoon that made it a success was the realism of the action. Of course Stone himself was a vet but he also was rumored to have interviewed over 100 vets from special forces to generals in order to make his movie the real deal. Now thats commitment. You have to ask yourself was this Stones work or his Penence.
Platoon will leave you, unlike it characters feeling emotions both good and bad. Satisifed from what you have seen but yet somehow distraught over the issues involved. Was it right to enjoy this movie considering the subject matter. Was it right to relive the nightmare that cost the lives of over 500000 young men. That’s something everyone decides for themselves.
“The first casualty of war IS innocence”<br>
AOD gives it 10/10
