Platoon
Among movies about the Vietnam War, there are four that stand out in cinema history as being the absolute best, not just about Nam, but as war movies in general, since obviously THAT war made for the most dramatic, cinematic content, and given the glut of lame, boring, whiny, preachy, and overly political films about the various Iraq wars, the most entertaining as well. The best is undoubtedly Apocalypse Now, using Vietnam as an allegory into the exploration of the darkness in every manās heart and scoring major points for successfully exploiting that metaphor to its fullest. Then there is Full Metal Jacket, kind of a brilliant walkthrough of what it takes to be trained, prepared, and then survive in that kind of environment, while still maintaining the remnants of oneās soul. Next is The Deer Hunter, easily the worst of the bunch (although a Best Picture Oscar winner), that mostly took a measured look at the painful and permanent affereffects of those who came home and those who did not while injecting the bizarre dynamic of Russian Roulette into the story as both a form of POW torture (supposedly never confirmed as having ever actually happened) and as a form of spectator sport. Finally, we have this 1986 release from Oliver Stone, kind of in the middle but still a brilliant masterpiece in its own right and also a Best Picture Oscar winner. Stone actually cranked out the original script in the early 70s after returning from his own harrowing tour of Vietnam and, having been inspired by listening to Doors music during the time he was there, literally sent the script to Jim Morrison in Paris offering him the lead part eventually played by Charlie Sheen, and Morrison reportedly died with the script in his possession. Flash forward to the mid 80s, when Stone finally had the clout as a director to get the film made, and came up with something that stunned the world and reportedly brought actual Vietnam vets to tears for its painful accuracy, perhaps even giving them a closure of sorts. This was because unlike the other films, Stoneās work was actually about The Vietnam War ITSELF, and what it was really like to fight in it and eventually be dehumanized by it. There was no doubt of the atrocities carried out by The United States Military during this conflict, including murder, rape, burning of villages, and a policy by our government that many feel was borderline genocide. To that extent, nearly every character, whether they appear to be āgoodā or āevilā, are actually all tortured souls, and that knowledge at times almost seems to excuse their most heinous of actions. Sheen (a literal babe in the woods at that time by Hollywood standards, long before his infamous party animal days) kind of takes the torch from his father Martin who starred in Apocalypse (and also had seen older brother Emilio Estevez turn down the role) to take on the lead part here, a young man entering the world of Vietnam who had NOT been drafted, but rather dropped out of college and voluntarily signed up in order to serve his country, narrating the film through a series of letters sent back home to his grandma (apparently he is estranged from his mother and father over his service), whom once he gets out in the jungle and acquainted with his fellow soldiers, finds out the entire group (including the young West Point Lieutenant seemingly in charge) are literally pawns in a battle of wills between the two main Sergeants that everyone respects and gravitates to either one or the other, two ultra badasses who carry themselves as if they had lived in the hellish jungles of Nam their whole lives, and yet constantly are at odds over their differing philosophies. On one hand we have Barnes (Tom Berenger), a scarred, intimidating, almost monstrous figure feared by the men over the fact that he has been wounded seven times and whom they fear even more can never truly be killed, and Barnes is clearly a guy who makes no qualms about winning the war by any means necessary using the most inhumane methods against The Vietnamese People if he possibly can, but his seeming brutality comes from the insanity of watching so many of his men die in combat over seemingly incompetent leadership, and for whom death would most likely be a release since he has no intention of ever leaving until the war is won, clearly making this a career highlight for Berenger based off of the slew of ānice guyā roles he was known for. On the other hand, there is Elias (Willem Dafoe), the āgoodā Sergeant who maintains a greater belief in bonding with his men including partying and smoking weed while instilling in them a sort of sense of spirituality that what they are doing is for some kind of greater good even if itās not exactly for the good of the good ol U.S. of A., even though while carrying this almost āhippieā mentality, Elias is still nonetheless no pussy at all, but rather a sleek, efficient, killing machine able to do things that no other soldier can do like sneak into foxholes and go off by himself into the jungle alone without getting brought down by the enemy, and ultimately gives us one of the most iconic images in 80s cinema. Dafoe put himself squarely on the A list with this performance, and has stayed there ever since, with both him and Berenger picking up Oscar nominations for Best Supporting Actor, the two of them continuing to fight it out to the last. The great thing about Stoneās writing is that (despite his own far left politics) he never clearly chooses political sides with both his stories and characters, despite the seemingly obvious āangelā and ādemonā personas assigned to Elias and Barnes. Actually, Barnes can be seen as a great soldier making the best of being in a bad situation doing whatever he can do to fulfill his duty to his country at all costs in order to make the ends justify the means with the horrific scars on his own face showing the price he has paid and is willing to continue to pay while instilling that same ferocity in combat to his own men in order to keep them alive, while Elias almost comes across as a guy who has essentially āgiven upā (even admitting it to Sheen at one point) and feels that the whole war is lost and that itās pointless to even have it continue, but yet still carrying out his own duties in combat as a soldier (which are still impressive and deadly) with a forlorn resignation while he invites his crew to party and smoke weed (and one wonders what else) and basically āsoften them upā to not really care about fighting and just survive long enough to complete their tour and go home. The rest of the cast is filled out with a combination of guys who never quite made it with their acting careers (Francesco Quinn, Reggie Johnson, Mark Moses, Corey Glover) and future stars and top notch character actors (Keith David, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon making a sadistic impression as Bunny, John C. McGinley as the guy who kisses Barnesā ass the whole movie but still longs to go home, Richard Edson, Tony Todd, and even Johnny Depp, who was almost cast in Sheenās role!). The impression we always receive from these type of films is that war is Hell and war is madness, but Vietnam was a particular type of Hell and a peculiar kind of madness, and Stone managed to successfully essay that fact more than any other filmmaker of the 20th century, bringing realism like never before to a situation where Americans would sell their souls in order to survive and could even possibly turn on each other to do so as well. In the end, the horror of a war that never should have been was brought to life here by a man for whom cranking out classic, thought provoking films would become second natureā¦
10/10