"I Am Reality"

Rating: 9/10 (22 April 2013)

You could sandwich this between the highly overrated and dismal The Deer Hunter (1978) and the surreal greatness that is Apocalypse Now (1979)... (forget the redux). The Vietnam War was and is quite the problem child of Father America's Soldiers and fighting Men. The unnecessary involvement and complete mishandling of the War, although pretty much uncovered and clear by now, has still not been fully understood by newer Generations.
This is an unforgettable, if slightly overrated, account of a Platoon of Grunts that is rich in Characters but may have tried to compact many long and hard years of boots on the ground into the experience of one group. Given that this is something that could be called "Artistic License", we should give Oliver Stone a pass and politely call this Fiction based on Fact. Because that is exactly what it is and the Director knows it and would say that is the intent here.
So many have called this a "that's the way it was" Movie. It is in a sense, a once removed sense, of an overview of the total experience that was this unfortunate "Police Action" (War was never declared) that claimed the lives of so many and shaped a Generation.