Great Vietnam war classic

Rating: 10/10 (26 May 2008)

Now that we can make much more detailed and informed reflections of the regrettable and controversial American involvement in the Vietnam war. The conspiracy theories now wear thin and the Communist regime has brought economic misery but stability to contemporary Vietnam. This film opens with the brutality involved in training marines for this war from the view of Private Joker (Mathew Modine) especially on the unfortunate obese Pvt Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) whose countenance has what appears to be a permanent grin. Pvt Pyle suffers a total breakdown and shoots his training Sergeant. These events brought focus on the brutal and dehumanising training on young unfortunate men who were drafted rather than enlisting.
The second part of the film takes us to the streets of war torn Vietnam where the brutality of of some American soldiers is highlighted first on a tiny Vietnamese prostitute and then a tiny Female Viet Cong sniper who is finally gunned down after cutting down some troops. The plight of Vietnamese women is highlighted in these two scenes.
There have been many clichés made about contemporary war films and its now stupid and boring to get caught up in these eloquent phrases about the duality of man and futility of war. Historical perspectives of war are usually made with a political stance in mind and this film tends to reinforce the darker aspects of this tragic conflict.
This film does not glorify American soldiers and their courage as does World war 2 films but examines the moral dilemma's involved in serving your country.
Kubrick's masterful production values make this a very confronting film and has left America with an important reminder that foreign military intervention is thwart with moral danger.
Truly one of the great Vietnam war films along with "Deer Hunter", "Apocalypse Now", "Platoon", "Heaven and Earth", "Escape Dawn" and "Born on the 4th July".
A great example if the film mastery of the greatest of them all STANLEY KUBRICK.