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Summary: Haiku Review
Review: Charlie follows in
Dad's footsteps: Vietnam horrors.
Too bad it's not Conrad.
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Summary: Excellent movie, solid DVD
Review: Oliver Stones semi-autobiographical account of his tour in Vietnam is presented in a solid and unpretentious DVD. What makes this movie work is that it avoids the trap of being self-indulgent and does not pontificate. You aren't being beat over the head with a morality tale. Which is what would have happened in the hands of a less capable director. It relies on fully realized and highly watchable characters and what they do in the environment that they are in to tell the story. It's one of the best war films for this reason. The DVD features are great. The widescreen presentation adds to jungle locale of the film and makes you realize what you have missed on veiwing pan & scan versions of VHS and/or cable. "Tour of the Inferno" the making of documentary is exceptional and is one of the more enjoyable ones I have seen. Not only do you see Sheen, Stone & Berenger, but you also get to see Johnny Depp and Forrest Whitaker as well. All of them a great when telling thier stories about the making of the film. The audio commentary by Stone is also a standout. The movie is great, the features are valid and the price is right. There is no reason to hold out for a two-disc uberversion. A staple in any collectors library.
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Summary: This is one tough movie....
Review: I was drafted, trained in combat infantry at Ft Polk, and shipped off to Viet Nam. When this movie first came out, I had a lot of misgivings on how I would react seeing it. I found it riveting and many of the scenes of how they responded was something I could relate to. I bought the DVD, but it still took me a long time to get around to watching it. The truths ring through strongly and they seem to be repeated as each new war starts over. Looking back over the several decades since Viet Nam, this movie is actually a very strong anti-war movie and well acted. The background feature on the making of the movie is a must see, and the fact that the movie was shot in order makes for a great deal of the realism. This should be required viewing for perhaps those who are so eager to commit men/women to combat, but never have served themselves. Lives could be saved.
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Summary: Great
Review: The truth of the movie was unbelivable. The action was amazing and charlie sheen did a great job. I esspecially liked the music for it was very movie. I can' even put into words how good this movie is. It is by far the best war movie passing even the greats like saving private ryan and a thin red line
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Summary: The first casualty of war is innocence
Review: It is an historical fact that the United States never lost a war until it set its feet into a country called Vietnam. That is what is at the root of writer/director Oliver Stone's masterpice PLATOON, a portrait of that protracted "police action" against communism in southeast Asia that sent 58,000 American soldiers and almost two million Vietnamese citizens to their graves. Largely semi-autobiographical, since Stone served in Vietnam as the war was beginning to reach a fever pitch (1967-68), PLATOON places Charlie Sheen as a green Army recruit into the middle of the war, realizing after only one week of service that he made a very bad mistake. The battles he faces are not just with the elusive Vietcong, but also within his own platoon--the conflict between the more level-headed and humanistic Elias (Willem Dafoe) and the vicous, cold-blooded Barnes (Tom Berenger). Sheen's character is a survivor, but something is clearly taken from him during his Vietnam sojourn, as it was for hundreds of thousands of our soldiers and the Vietnamese people caught in the crossfire. And that something is Innocence--always the first casualty of war, as the movie's slogan says. It took ten long and frustrating years for Stone to get this from the writing stage to actually making the movie itself, but the film's completion paid off in dividends. In PLATOON, Stone shows that the Vietcong were tremendous fighters and willing to take chances, not the sitting ducks depicted in Sylvester Stallone's "Rambo" movies or, even more infamously, in John Wayne's THE GREEN BERETS. It also shows how American soldiers bought their racial prejudices from home over to Asia and how, under the right conditions, young men can snap and engage in atrocious and barbaric behavior. The film doesn't depict this as right or wrong; it just depicts things the way Stone remembers it. The haunting imagery of death and pain in the film is magnified by Stone's decision to famously use Samuel Barber's masterpiece "Adagio For Strings" as this movie's musical calling card. Sheen gamely follows in his father Martin Sheen's footsteps as Stone's alter-ego Chris Taylor; and Dafoe and (particularly) Berenger are excellent as sergeants in conflict. Berenger's famous quote sums up why he is what he is: "I got no fight with any man who does what he's told. But when he don't, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, WE break down." PLATOON justifiably won Oscars for Best Picture and Best Director for Stone, making him a bankable, if often controversial, Hollywood powerbroker from here on in. In later years, he would explore other aspects of the Vietnam conflict, especially in BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY and HEAVEN AND EARTH. PLATOON is HIS story, and it is one of the most powerful films ever made in Hollywood history.
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Summary: The younger Sheen's pales in comparison to his father's
Review: Platoon is by no means a bad movie. In fact I rather liked it, but it just wasn't all that great. Charlie Sheen is fine for a nice cheesy comedy, but not really the right actor for something as weighty as this wants to be. And there's the other problem, this film thinks way too much of itself. *Gasp* violence! *Gasp* drugs! *Gasp* insanity! The viewer is told exactly what they are supposed to feel/think in this movie, rather than being given the opportunity to do so themselves. If you take something like Apocalypse Now, or Full Metal Jacket (also good but overrated in my opinion), the sense of insanity, of "off-ness", is simply there, not being lit up with neon signs. If you're looking for a good representation of the Vietnam War, or a political commentary on it, you can do better. Again, I did like it, but I strongly recommend renting this one before plunking down your dough.
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Summary: amazing
Review: i cant even put it into words my breath was taken away by this masterpeice
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Summary: A Nostalgic and Symbolic Reflection
Review: Although Oliver Stone's critical reflections in Platoon are unique and moving, they are more symbolic renditions of the conflict. The movie seeks to show the various physical and idelogical struggles that moved and shaped the American public during the Vietnam War. The political ideologies; how low-intensity guerilla Cold War conflicts took a toll on public opinion in that protracted conflict; how socio-economic strife such as racism and poverty manifested themselves in the military. The character played by Charlie Sheen is seens as the all American fall-guy: a boy with a naive view about patriotism who volunteers to duty as opposed to being drafted and so becomes a man. His political beliefs are challenged by two opposing platoon sergeants: Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) and Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger). The character played by DeFoe has a liking for Sheen's as he sees the same man in him when he first joined the war. Barnes is the opposite; there doesn't need to be a just purpose for him to serve in a war; there just needs to be a war: he does his job so well he actually enjoys it. The conflict between Barnes and Elias seems to reflect the deeper social divisions at home. Barnes symbolizes the conservative establishment demonstrating the view that fighting for your country is reason enough to go to war. Elias is the conscience and voice of wisdom in the film; reflecting the changing public views that the Government going to war is, in and of itself, not good enough of a reason to support a war if it doesn't make sense to the people. By Barnes killing Elias in the end, Stone seeks to show how the war was taken over by war mongers for whom the war was the end in and of itself. Sheen's character comes back as the redeemer whe he finally vindicates Elias and his position on the war. Overall a touching movie more focused on symbolism and imagery than other films such as Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"; not as much as "Apocalypse Now" but still more of a poetic vision rather than realistic.
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Summary: Over rated and Untrue
Review: This is Stone's hollywood view of what occurred in Vietnam. More guilt trips than truth. As a 2 year in-country vet, I believe it is deplorable that he fails to note that the mission itself was an honorable one and so was the performance of the American soldier. He managed to contribute to the stereotype of the Vietnam soldier as a baby killer and drug addict, which is not the truth.This film does not belong in the same catagory as "The Longest Day".
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Summary: platoonwasawesome
Review: Platoon is by far the best Vietnam War movie ever made. It shows how horrible the conditions were and terrifying it was for all of those men to be there risking their lives. Chris Taylor (played by Charlie Sheen) is a young kid who gives up a cushy lifestyle to come there. The movie shows how young soldiers lost their innocence. Chris Taylor was very innocent before coming there, and then realized the only way to escape from the reality of this horror was to start smoking pot. Bunny was another young kid who started acting crazy, and the movie shows how war can make an innocent looking kid like Bunny become very dangerous. Besides this, Platoon was also a very enjoyable movie to watch, and was never boring.
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