Platoon (Special Edition)
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Johnny Depp, Keith David, Kevin Dillon, Tom Berenger, Willem DafoeDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; French (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 120 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-06-05
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
Movie Reviews of Platoon (Special Edition)
Movie Review: Conservatives, You Can Come Out of Your Foxholes
Summary: 4 Stars
First, let me lay my cards on the table: I'm a conservative republican, am generally pro-military (i.e. U.S.), and distrust Oliver Stone nearly as much as I do Michael Moore. Further, I don't know if I've ever agreed with a thing that the Sheen family has said. Yet even though some of my political pals disdain this movie, I feel differently. I half-expected a heavy dose of lefty-propaganda and intentional distortion, but for the most part was pleasantly surprised. I try to evaluate every item I encounter fairly and individually (instead of a knee jerk reaction), and these are my thoughts on Platoon, after viewing it again tonight:
On the 'positive' side, the film rightly shows the awfulness of war. Again and again, liberals seem to think that those on the right somehow deny this. Of course we do not! I give the movie high marks for depicting war as a living nightmare. Personally, I cringe when some of the older movies represent war as little more than a comic book boys' fantasy. I also thought Platoon contained some admirable acting (Sheen, Dafoe, Berenger, David), and combat scenes. It held me throughout.
The one major criticism I would make, and the flaw that keeps it from being an elite film in my opinion, is the way in which it reaches too far to show the dark side and corruption of the soldiers (American). Stone has a crippling weakness for sensationalism (evidence: JFK), and it seeped through some here. For instance, you cannot take the worst atrocities (even if they are all factual, which I question) and then portray them as representative of a typical company of soldiers and their Vietnam experience. Yet this was the impression given. In fact, it was basically the story. This is irresponsible and misleading. One of the film's few faults, but a bad one.
However, when considered as a whole, Platoon has much to commend it. While it is unfortunate that its weaknesses diminish its merit, they do not ruin it. I'd be very surprised if Stone ever makes another movie nearly as good.
Summary of Platoon (Special Edition)
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 EmersonWinner* of 4 Academy Awards?(r), including Best Picture, and based on the first-hand experience of Oscar?(r)-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?(r)-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.
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