Platoon (Special Edition)
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Movie Reviews of Platoon (Special Edition)
Movie Review: A man's film
Summary: 5 Stars
While everytime a Nam film is released most people look for the WHAT A LOST CAUSE or OH THE HUMANITY HOW AWFUL aspects and then pile on words like HEART WRENCHING and POWERFUL to make every single Nam film seem like a sad journy into, whatever. Do not be fooled here, for this film is about men who kill and enjoy it, sadly the film's central character is a sometimes unrealistic whiney rich kid who cries a lot but ends up kicking tons of arse in the end. I would have much liked to see the film from Tom Berenger's characters point of view, it would have been far more fun just to watch him and his goons go around shooting people for no reason.And make no bones about it, this is where the real entertainment lies in is watching people get shot in this movie and then the characters make macho speeches and remarks, like it or not this film wants you to enjoy what you're seeing and it works because so many people revisit it. The combat scenes are intense and contains plenty of scenes of insane screaming people shooting people in the face and crushing skulls in with the butt of their rifles. The most hilarious scene in the film comes when the troops march into a village and beat the living crap out of everyone, smash in a retarded kid's head (LOOK AT THEM BRAINS, I would have liked to see the brains, MPAA wusses out again), blow an old lady away and there's even a rape of a girl who can't be past the age of 13. Watching Charlie Sheen's wimpy character try to be MR.PEACE around all these mighty buttkicking savages is pathetic and hilarious. Another great scene comes when Berenger blows away Willem Dafoe, who despite being really cool by doing lots of drugs to escape reality (actually, drinking would help that more, weed isn't nearly as good, and Oliver Stone does TONS of drugs) tries to rat Berenger out for having a little fun. The film comes to its close after a cool battle where lots of people get blown up Sheen blows Berenger's guts out, not knowing that he is now the true badass.
Overall this is a MAN's movie that is extremely hilarious and fun to watch, I never understood any of the DRAMATIC or SAD scenes or even noticed them, the use of classical music during Dafoe's hilarious death scene is used just as Monty Python would have. No doubt you don't like my review already but consider just how funny alot of the scenes are, and they're meant to be, despite Stone trying to recapture his preaching/shockingly realistic feel he got with Salvador, which was actually horrifying to watch, the scenes in this film are just that, scenes in a movie made to entertain.
On the surface, a dramatic war masterpiece, on the inside, a black comedy for Sam Peckinpah fans who like to watch people get shot by cool guys who cuss and drink alot. This film went on the spawn the worst NES game EVER made.
Movie Review: No Soldiers, No War
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a great movie that won Best Picture in 1987 and was acclaimed by both the public and the critic. Oliver Stone directs his first movie about Vietnam (the second was "Born on the Fourth of July", another great movie) telling his own experience about going to war. From the very beginning we can see everything about the military that they don't show when they recruiting (the ugly and painful true about the war). And the movie goes on an on until you see absolutely everybody completely nuts, doing drugs, killing randomly, even killing each other. This is waht war does with men. You are not a human being anymore. The movie is obviously rated R for violence, and there are some very tough scenes that make anybody cry. The toughest in my opinion is the one at the village, when they kill -among others- a mentally retarded (and of course harmless) young guy, and a woman. Then they set the village on fire, rape some women, and get away with it. The whole cast is excellent, specially Dafoe, who in my opinion nails his character. And the DVD comes with an excellent and terrific documentary called "Tour of the Inferno" (about 30 minutes long) about the film with Stone, Dafoe, Depp, etc. talking about the movie. There is also a commentary by Stone and a captain in there.
This movie should be mandatory in all High Schools in America. If there were no soldiers, there would be no wars, and the war in Iraq looks a lot like the war in Vietnam. USA is making the same mistake again, and the government is so blind to see that (or maybe they don't care about the people, just about the business all the weapons' companies -Bush' frieds- are making out of it!). But let's be smart, let's just ignore the government. They always get their way. Let's be smart and close all ROTC programs from schools. How can we be so hypocrites and have those programs in schools? Is that the education we really think our children deserve? That does not happen any other place in the world, not even in Cuba. Let's invest that money on education. REAL education. How many trilion dollars have Bush wasted in Iraq so far? How much money does the government invest on education? On health? For the people who live and work in America? Parents: teach your children. Nobody should join the Army. Let the politicians -real leaders, not the bunch of idiots we have today spread all over the planet- do the job, we'll see how many would go. Let the Commander in Chief go to war himself. There is no question about it: there would be no war. They wouldn't go. They would try to negotiate, and try to solve conflicts peacefully.
Again, this is a GREAT movie everybody should watch. A masterpiece that is just not that, but also makes us think, and educates us. Everybody should ask themselves: war ... is it worth it? What for ... ?
Movie Review: DID JOHN KERRY CONSULT STONE ON THIS FILM?
Summary: 5 Stars
The essential story is only true if it describes William Calley and My Lai, or what that could have been if the villagers had been saved by a Messianic Sergeant Elias (Dafoe) instead of being gunned down by a Satanic Barnes (Berenger as a Calley knock-off). If Stone had simply made it the "My Lai Massacre", it would have been historically accurate, but what he did was pernicious. He wanted to convey to millions of moviegoers that My Lai was the norm, and he cast this ordinary platoon of grunts as driven to a My Lai-type war crime by the very nature of his view of our illegitimate role in Vietnam. Stone was in Vietnam and I was not, but the history of Vietnam is not a history of ordinary units run amok in racist killing sprees. Stone infuses the story with humanity and heroes. Sheen plays Chris, an idealist, based on Stone's vision of himself. Want a fact? Here is a fact. Oliver Stone is not in the same league with the idealized Chris character. He is not a pimple on Chris's rear end.
Chris is a hero and a survivor. Dafoe, as Elias, is a Christ-like figure who protects his "brothers" and shows no fear, even when chasing "Charlie" into that most dangerous of places, the underground tunnel system. His death, portrayed on the posters, is a wide-armed crucifix, and it is avenged by Chris, his disciple who takes to the challenge with the passion of the converted. A final battle also shows something that rarely, if ever, happened. North Vietnamese regulars overrun the Americans. In actuality, they won all the battles against the NVA. Then, the commander has to make a call and have the whole "pod," friend and foe alike, napalmed in another stretch on history.
Berenger and his "super lifer" pals are shown to be corrupt, have a taste for death, and little accountability in a situation that lets them kill "gooks" with racist impunity. This is not out of the question. Soldiers are trained killers, and combat de-humanizes them. The Audie Murphy characterizations are not true, either. But Stone has created a vision of the Vietnam experience that is not portrayed as a special circumstance, but rather the average, the every day. His political message is very clear, and it is to discredit the objectives of the war. He also discredits a lot of his buddies who fought with him. He does demonstrate the inhuman behavior of the Communists, which as a combat Marine he saw for himself, but strongly urges the viewer to buy into the sickness of America.
This film seems to parody the lies of John Kerry during the Winter Soldier investigation. Me? I'm rootin' for America.
STEVEN TRAVERS
AUTHOR OF "BARRY BONDS: BASEBALL'S SUPERMAN"(...)
Movie Review: The best vietnam movie ever made.
Summary: 5 Stars
Oliver Stones harrowing and convincingly brutal Vietnam war film won best picture for it's startling reality.But this film is not just about another man that has never been there Oliver Stone has and it makes this powerful film an intimatevison of how it really was , in an insane place the only sain
morality is to keep your innocence , for newly recruited and sent Chris Taylor he thought he would voulenteer for Nam , to get a eyewitness of what it was like , but what he thought would be an itresting trip would turn into a nightmare into a world of darkness , death and pure insanity into another place
where the face of war can blind and cripple a soldier and turn
him into a souless killing machine with no morality from right
and wrong no ability to care.Chris is played by Charlie Sheen
and we see the war in his eyes we see his platoon at war with the viet cong and tragically at war within themselves ans each
other.His two commanding officers Elias and Barnes played by Willan Defoe who won best supporting actor and Tom Berringer.
Alias who has lost faith in the war but not in his men or morality , Barnes who the war has gotten to him so much that he is an unfeeling souless monster he is the perfect example
of the tragedy of Vietnam for Stone to do this is brillant and real.The most shocking scene in Platoon is when they are
told to infeltrate a vietnamese camp and the real tragedy of
platoon is shown , when all sense of humanity is lost when crimes are commited against it and these are the very men who
shold be fighting the viet cong not each other.Elias , Barnes
are commited to an showdown of inasnity and the face of hell
is revealed in their eyes.Platoon could be the Saving Private
Ryan of Vietnam the soldiers did not have to worry about the how hellish it was to be there or the viet cong they made a place in which they could have there own private hell whithin
themseles which was a much worse and horrific place to be then
Vietnam in this real and tragic depiction about war and it's affect on the soldiers that serve in it.
Brillant script and story great options on the DVD provide
a film from a director who needed to tell his story and who did
in an sometimes brutal and intimate way for Vietnam nothing gets
better then Platoon for strikingly real drama about a war that may not have been understood but must not be forgotten this film
and The Wall are perfect memorials to the men who served in this
dark and blinding war , for the one thing that was blinding was to keep your sanity this film is a true classic war film.
Movie Review: "Death? Whadda ya'll know about death?"
Summary: 5 Stars
This sits right behind `The Godfather' as my all time favorite movie. Actually I have probably watched this film more times than any other. A friend and I had seen this so many times that if one of us quoted a line from it the other would answer with the next part of the script and then we would go on for about 15 minutes verbatim from the dialogue (much to the annoyance of anyone around us).
Though I've never been in combat, I have been in the Army for 17 years and I have a feeling (from knowing my fellow soldiers like I do) that this movie is accurate in portraying combat and the life of the grunt in Vietnam. And if it is this verite that compels the film, it the acting that keeps it focused. The supporting cast is tight and the three main players (Sheen, Berenger and Dafoe) are outstanding. Stone really inspired these men and brought out indelible performances.
The intensity of this work is severe. It is commensurate with a good horror film that keeps you on the edge of your seat, but in this case the horror is all too real. Three scenes are particularly nonplusing: the playing of `Tracks of My Tears' in the middle of the film as a clear point in which to delineate the hopelessness of the soldiers; the fulminating village scene culminating in Barnes with the gun to the little girls head and the disconcerted face of Chris as he strains with emotion, wanting to say something; and the incomparable tableau of Elias' death, arms outstretched to the sky as the chopper flies by. That scene has affected me like few scenes ever have, and it always takes me a few minutes to recover from it. It is one of the most powerful film moments I have ever seen. And Stone's choice of `Aidiago For Strings' for the background music was very perceptive.
The only question I have about the movie is the ending. I can't praise it or condemn it. I suppose that it is realistic, but it seems to lessen the humanity of Chris especially considering his final words about going from this point to make a better world. It just seems like such a great film deserved a better ending but, as I cannot come up with one myself, I'll keep my criticism low.
A quick side note: I met Corey Glover who played `Francis' (the guy who stabs himself in the leg at the end in order to go home) in Stuttgart Germany. He was the lead singer for the band `Living Colour' (they had a hit with the song `Cult of Personality') and they were playing a club there. He was very cordial and talkative. I didn't realize at the time that he had even been in the film until I watched it for a second time on video and noticed his name.