Pure Awesomeness

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 2012)

If you haven't seen Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy, buy yourself a copy of each. If you've only seen "Platoon" (1986), then put simply you missed the return home. The film focuses on the horror of not just the war, but what it really entailed to bring it home with you. Like "Platoon", one of the movie's golden features is its stunning cast.
If you're a Cruise fan or not, here he is undeniably great. He portrayed the grueling state of post-combat rehabilitation, the tragedy of discovering everything you've fought for is a lie and quite brilliantly how easy it is to inadvertently become a propaganda-believing automaton. You feel his pain, but more importantly his disillusionment. The rest of the cast and production team do well to re-create the turmoil of the era, capturing civil unrest as the displacement of the returning veterans. The most striking thing to me is how no movie doesn't hold back at all, and can be pretty brutal emotionally on the characters, of course only painting a picture of how brutal the real world really is. Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava do exceptionally well and oh did I mention Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger manage to co-star as well? You can't top that quite frankly. Adding to all this is a glorious composition of music by none other than John Williams.
The film boasts nightmarish visuals, an incredible score and a true sense of the times. It all culminates in one of my favorite film endings ever, I really recommend this movie.