Being patriotic can be your best friend. It can also be your worst enemy.

Rating: 6/10 (26 March 2019)

This was a very hard film to absorb. First and foremost, if you're looking for a great war film, I want to direct you away from this title, and feast your eyes on Platoon, I had just watched this on vudu not too long ago. I knew it was a great movie, but I couldn't watch it at the time of its release because of the disturbing content. Born On the Fourth of July is not a great war movie. I wouldn't even call it a great movie. It is, however, a film that follows the life and times of Ron Kovic. Ron is hero, regardless of how you view this film. It's a story of how one believes in his country, but understands all too late that his country doesn't believe in him. I want to give a personal shout out to all those soldiers who have fought or are currently fighting for the red white and blue. I, myself, was born on the fourth of July. ( Tom Cruise himself missed it by a day...he was born July 3) While I did not dislike the film, I can't say I enjoyed it, either. Everything seems lost in translation, and the fact that the movie abruptly ends without hearing Ron give his speech made me scream "SO WHAT WAS THE POINT TO THE MOVIE!?" The point, as I see it, is it just seems to follow what one believes in, one man trying to be a great person, a great hero in life, and feeling betrayed by his country, he becomes anti war. Personally, I don't believe in the governments or the wars they fight, its all too political, and I feel that money should be spent elsewhere. ( If you want to argue my point of view, my final thought is to look at Canada. Look at how many wars they fought versus us. I rest my case!) I got the feeling as if Ron just wore his heart on his sleeve. That's a trait of being a Cancer, and I felt so bad for him when he was paralyzed, and asking the doctor the question of weather he would ever be able to have children. That, too, is another trait of a Cancer, we love children. Family is everything to us. Being stripped from being the man that he was ( and the whole facade is that you go into the military to BE a man. Well said.) , he turns to his old prom date to begin a rally that will rage a war against the war itself. Why fight for a country that doesn't care if you're alive or dead, and why fight for a country that won't take care of you when you're wounded. The film does an excellent job of capturing the piss poor treatment the soldiers get in the VA hospitals. Nice going, I like the exposure! However, the emotional atmosphere is just all over the place with the film, we don't know weather to like him, dislike him, root for him, or question anything that he says or does. All in all, this was a good chunk of Kovics life. And, as he says in the film, its America. Love it or leave it.