Powerful, but simple

Rating: 7/10 (3 August 2004)

It may be hard to remember in the age where his service in the Vietnam war is a major political asset for John Kerry, but that war was for many years a real embarrassment to America (which fought and lost it). The veterans of that war were among those to pay the price as mainstream society preferred to forget what it had done in sending them there. The movie industry, meanwhile, eventually established its own orthodoxy: we could hardly expect Hollywood to praise those who refused the draft (or indeed the Viet Cong); but now there are many movies which, without defending the war or the way it was fought, nonetheless celebrate the individual soldiers who took part. This narrative extends to also telling the tale of their subsequent betrayal at home, which is the subject of 'Born on the 4th of July', as well as earlier films like the masterful 'Deer Hunter' and, obliquely, 'Taxi Driver'.
Before this film, Oliver Stone had a reputation for making one-dimensional, bombastic movies, and Tom Cruise had one as a pretty boy who couldn't act. But Cruise certainly widens his range, playing a crippled veteran with some passion and skill, and although Stone has not made a subtle film here, it's at least an improvement on the atonal 'Platoon'. The basic story is naturally compelling, although the beginning is over-stylised (or, to be more cutting, under-individualised) and the "happy" ending (Cruise's character becomes a Democratic activist) is a bit strange, given Johnson's instrumental role in Vietnam. Ultimately, the film's critique of the war is put forward with some partisanship, but also too simply to convince: it's purpose is more to explain how the hero changed his mind than to make us change ours. Overall, it's not a bad film; but I'm still waiting to see a Vietnam movie that really dares make the toughest political points. It does, however, provide an early hint of Stone's obsession with Richard Nixon, which came out more fully in his later work.