Stone is as good with fiction as he is bad with history.

Rating: Null/10 (28 June 2005)

"Platoon" (1986): If "The Thin Red Line" is a contender for the ultimate poetic film about war (and I say it is), then "Platoon" is the gritty, tense, realistic contender. There is NOTHING soft, easy, relaxing, funny, or romantic about this story. The acting is superb by all (the list is too long, although Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, and Willem Defoe take main characters), and each scene is a creation with only one goal in mind - to attempt an explanation of what it is to be a soldier in war. The photography is confusing and violent, the lighting leaves movement and perception in doubt, the sanity of the characters is fragile, the scoring is both epic and nostalgic. This is Art on all levels.