Remarkable Oliver Stone Movie!

Rating: 8/10 (25 March 2005)

Perhaps no other North-American director has done so much to tell the truth about the Vietnam War than Oliver Stone. Coppola created the breathtaking Apocalypse Now, and Michael Cimino created my favourite The Deer Hunter. And yet those movies, I think, set out to tell an abstract, universal story about war that could fit any war  WWII, Vietnam, The Gulf, etc: war is hell. But Stone's earlier Platoon was perhaps the first great movie that explored the relationships between American soldiers in Vietnamese soil born out of the circumstances they found themselves in. I don't believe Platoon could have been told with WWI as the backdrop  especially because the movie is based on Stone's personal experience in 'Nam.
And Born On The Fourth Of July yet again explores an intrinsic aspect of the Vietnam War: the veterans' homecoming. Stone takes his time setting up the story: at the beginning he shows the viewer a WWII veterans' parade in young Ron Kovic's town being received with warmth, respect and admiration. A clear contrast is made later in the movie in Kovic's parade wherein anti-war protesters try to disrupt the parade. Stone thus visually shows peoples' attitude towards the two wars: the former was accepted and supported with patriotic zeal; the former divided a baffled America which didn't accept its government's lies nor couldn't understand the point of the war.
The beginning of the movie is pure foreshadowing in itself, as young Ronnie and his friend play soldiers in the woods and is ambushed and 'killed' by his friends. Stone sets this scene to immediately show the sort of patriotic, army-worshiping, 'tough' kid Ronnie is, and to foreshadow his tragic incident in Vietnam. Even as a kid we can see Ron Kovic is a complicated person: loved by his parents but having a domineering mother watching over him, filling his head with patriotic nonsense against the 'communist evil,' he becomes a rather dysfunctional kid: look at his behaviour when Donna kisses him; he gets on the ground and starts doing push-ups what? Is that supposed to impress her or he can't just interact well with women? Considering the Bible-strict family he comes from, it's no wonder. There are even hints that Ron's mother is somewhat ashamed of him: her expression when he loses the wrestling match seems to imply she finds him a loser, and her artificial goodness when Ron returns from the Vet's hospital in a wheelchair says the same. It's like she's embarrassed.
Although the movie is consistently good  except for the Mexico segment, in my opinion  it becomes really great after Ron returns from 'Nam. The Veteran hospital segment is just brilliant: we're shown how the veteran soldiers were dependent on uncaring, disrespectful warders who couldn't care less about the 'Nam; we see the awful conditions these soldiers were treated, with lack of money, resources, material; we see the soldiers being treated inhumanly and just craving some respect and dignity or at least that's their viewpoint. The truth is, most of them think they deserve the moon and the stars just because they went to some foreign country kill babies in the name of freedom but the warders can see just past through that nonsense and treat them like the ordinary people the veterans think they're not. I particularly love the scene where one warder tells Kovic that the Vietnam war is a rich man's war, and the true war is being fought in the USA, at the University campuses, for civil rights and equality. That's how disconnected from the real world Kovic is, that he sees the war his government dumped on him through his blind patriotism, but neglect what's really going on. And his staying in the hospital is a real eye-opener.
Truth be said, Ron Kovic never changes  although there's a superficial transition in the movie from Vietnam War apologist to anti-war protester, the fact is Kovic is characterised from the first scene as a man who only wants to do what's best for the country he so much loves; and at one point that means defending the Vietnam War with weak arguments  how can you defend sending young men to die miles way from home, anyway?  but as Kovic slowly matures he realises protesting against the war is really defending his country, even if it means being called traitor, beaten or arrested. One of the best scenes in the movie is when Kovic invades a Nixon convention and speaks to a journalist how the American government has lied to its people and convinced an entire generation of young men to die for nothing, and then dozens of people try to reach him to beat him up, spit in on or just insult him. It's a poignant scene because of Kovic's raw words and John Williams' always emotional score. The uplifting ending is just the cherry on the top for what is an otherwise amazing movie about human nature triumphing in the worst of conditions.