THE war movie

Rating: 10/10 (18 December 2002)

In general, I'm not a fan of war movies. But "Platoon" is literally a war movie. Other 'war movies' seem to concentrate a lot on the soldiers' life before the war, their families, etc. In "Platoon", the only civillian characters are the Vietnamese. The film is powerful and gripping. It is also quite gory, which is a turn-off to some people. But, after all, there is a lot of gore in war, right? Tom Berenger's portrayal of Sgt. Barnes was magnificent. Willem Dafoe and John C. McGinley weren't half-bad either.
In response to those two guys who criticized it(hockeyguy and Mike Fleming), I think you don't know what you're talking about. First of all, I don't believe soldiers would use politically correct terms to identify the enemy("We wasted three Asian people" would sound strange). Hence, the frequent use of 'dinks' and 'gooks'.
We Were Soldiers- accurate? The US was promoting peace in Nam, right? Please. If you've heard about the My Lai Incident(it was mentioned in the film when soldiers talked about Charlie Company), you'll know that Oliver Stone could have gone even further in his depiction of raping and pillaging. I've read that some soldiers refused to participate in such acts but they didn't want to 'spoil the fun' for the others. So the only unrealistic thing in this case was that Charlie Sheen's character saved the little girl from getting gang-raped. As far as the 'awful actors' part, I guess it's just a matter of taste. Anyway, unless you faint when you see blood, "Platoon" is a must-see. 9.5/10