Platoon (1986)
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(4 votes, average: 4.75 out of 5) 
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Much has been said about Oliver Stone's 1986 Platoon, culminating in a Best Picture Academy Award that year.
It's the story of young Chris (Charlie Sheen), fresh off the plane into the shit. And he winds up in all the usual Vietnam situations. Firefight in the jungle while on patrol, getting high back at base, burning up suspect villages and culminating in a huge NVA offensive against their position.
However the film's not about young Chris. At least not in my opinion. It's about the conflict between doing what's right (well, as right as it can get out there) as personified by Willem Dafoe's Elias, and the primal rage, fury, and killing nature inherent in all of us, personified by Tom Berenger's Sgt. Barnes. Chris is just an observer in all of this.
I saw Platoon when it first came out, and didn't understand it fully. Now that I (well I think anyway) get it, I wonder what all the hub-bub was about, really. Sure its a fair movie, and I'm told that its fairly spot on in its portrayal of "how things were"... but either it's just too full of the typical Vietnam war movie cliches, or it invented them and just hasn't aged well. I don't know which.
That's not to take away from the visual masterpiece that Platoon is. There's some incredible visuals here, and at times the action is pretty intense. At other times it seems almost funny-comical (i.e. when they're partying in their tent...) and comical in a not-funny way at others ("Dance! M-Fer!"... come on)
Given the importance of the film in War Movie History, I'd recommend you see it. Keep in mind the conflict between Elias and Barnes, and that there is the real drama and conflict.
Technorati Tags: movies, reviews, war movies, platoon, oliver stone, vietnam
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Description
Winner of 4 Academy Awards®, including Best Picture, and based on the first-hand experience of Oscar®-winning director Oliver Stone, Platoon is powerful, intense and starkly brutal. "Harrowingly realistic and completely convincing" (Leonard Maltin), it is "a dark, unforgettable memorial" (The Washington Post) to every soldier whose innocence was lost in the war-torn jungles of Vietnam. Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young, naive American who, upon his arrival in Vietnam, quickly discovers that he must do battle not only with the Viet Cong, but also with the gnawing fear, physical exhaustion and intense anger growing within him. While his two commanding officers (Oscar®-nominated Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe) draw a fine line between the war they wage against the enemy and the one they fight with each other, the conflict, chaos and hatred permeate Taylor, suffocating his realities and numbing his feelings to man's highest value, life.
Platoon put writer-turned-director Oliver Stone on the Hollywood map; it is still his most acclaimed and effective film, probably because it is based on Stone's firsthand experience as an American soldier in Vietnam. Chris (Charlie Sheen) is an infantryman whose loyalty is tested by two superior officers: Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), a former hippie humanist who really cares about his men (this was a few years before he played Jesus in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ), and Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), a moody, macho soldier who may have gone over to the dark side. The personalities of the two sergeants correspond to their combat drugs of choice--pot for Elias and booze for Barnes. Stone has become known for his sledgehammer visual style, but in this film it seems perfectly appropriate. His violent and disorienting images have a terrifying immediacy, a you-are-there quality that gives you a sense of how things may have felt to an infantryman in the jungles of Vietnam. Platoon won Oscars for best picture and director. --Jim Emerson
DVD Information
Binding: DVDAspect Ratio: 1.85:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Brand: BERENGER,TOM
Manufacturer: MGM (Video & DVD)
Original Release Date:
Actors:
- Charlie Sheen
- Willem Dafoe
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