Kovic's story is interesting, but Stone's 20-year snapshot of American more so

Rating: 8/10 (5 July 2017)

"Born on the Fourth of July," Oliver Stone's return to the subject of the Vietnam War, one he knows intimately, shows a different side of the war's impact than "Platoon" and frames it powerfully in the course of American history. Rather than craft a heavily editorialized anti-war message as he's been wont to do, Stone focuses on a real-life protagonist whose story says it all, veteran Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise).
The journey of this movie is Kovic's transformation from all- American, patriotic, devoted Christian marine volunteer to a vocal, unapologetic Vietnam War detractor, and all the bumps and bruises (inside and out) he endured along the way. It is a caution against radical patriotism and a reminder of the conflicts that divide the United States from within, not from abroad.
The film begins with glorious snippets from idealistic 1956 America in Kovic's hometown of Massapequa on Long Island, New York and the subsequent years until Kovic enlisted in the marines. Like so many young men born in the 40s, they grew up on stories of their fathers and fathers' fathers serving in the world wars and felt called to do the same. The story than moves to a few frantic war sequences in Vietnam, where Kovic was shot and paralyzed, and his far from flattering rehabilitation before returning home in 1969. Not long after his homecoming, his long-held patriotic values and beliefs begin to unravel as he sits with the reality of his situation.
In his first demanding role, Cruise captures both ends of Kovic's spectrum. He's young enough to play the wide-eyed high schooler and young soldier, and he pushes himself in impressive directions as the much older, jaded and deeply troubled Kovic. His casting is particularly meaningful given the way audiences had come to know him in the '80s as the pretty boy hero, which is Kovic at his essence in the first act of the film. Then to dismantle that perfect image and show the audience something they hadn't seen from him before really hammers home Kovic's transformation.
Given the film spans 20 years, Stone also has to weave its many components together into a single story. He doesn't quite pull it into a tight and centralized narrative (though in fairness the story doesn't lend itself to that), but he gives each act of the film its own space and tone that reflects not just Kovic's personal narrative but the American narrative. The red-hued war sequences and rehab sequences are of particular note for the way Stone achieves frantic chaos in an artistic and poignant way.
Kovic's internal struggle makes sense and in many ways is par for the course as he deals with PTSD, guilt and the loss of his lower extremities, so the cultural touches really make the film interesting almost 30 years later. Stone drops in a few characters singing Bob Dylan songs in quiet moments, for example, to convey the cultural shift that took place in America following the Kennedy assassination and into the Vietnam War and subsequent (and consequent) counterculture and protest movements and race riots.
Being able to observe this dramatic swing in American human history that Kovic's story captures so well has a nostalgic resonance, but "Born on the Fourth" doesn't feel as personally moving. Kovic's ordeal reveals a lot of ugly, stomach-churning, blood-boiling truths about that time and the experience of many Vietnam vets, but the way Kovic grows into his new perspective and purpose doesn't latch on emotionally in the way you'd expect despite following his life for two hours.
His moments of epiphany are logically apparent, however, and Stone gives us a brilliant juxtaposition that ties everything together in the film's climactic 1972 Republican National Convention protest scene, which shows the way Kovic has turned into a different kind of soldier and different kind of patriot through both dialogue, imagery and filmmaking technique reminiscent of earlier scenes.
In ways, Kovic's story isn't as fascinating as America's story in "Born on the Fourth of July," but Stone nails the latter and gets enough of the former right to the point that the film should have relevance for a long time.
~Steven C
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