Excellent

Rating: 8/10 (20 May 2002)

*** CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS ***
Unlike much of the director's work, Oliver Stone's "Platoon" is not politically orientated, at least not to the extent that his later films were. Oh, there's the occasional mention of politics and class division, but for the most part, his film is simply a time capsule of the Vietnam War.
It does not claim to hold all the answers to the social, political, or moral issues raised since then. It is nothing more than a record of what it was like there, and that's all it needs to be. I must note that it's more restrained than most of Stone's body of work; it's not that subtle a film on its own, but at least he editorializes less than he usually does.
As a combat veteran, he must have realized that the subject matter is best left without excessive embellishments or overdramatization.
One way that Stone breaks from convention is his portrayal of the day-to-day drudgery of Vietnam. Much of the protagonist's experiences consist of long, hard marches. He is frequently besieged not by enemy troops, but by exhaustion, humidity, and insect bites. He is given the cold shoulder by the more experienced troops, who adhere to the unwritten rule that the worth of one's life is directly proportional to the length of his stay thus far. As he comes to realize, many of his conflicts will not be with the Viet Cong, but with some of his own comrades...and himself, as well. The conflict has divided American society to such a degree that even our own troops are always at each other's throats. How can we effectively organize a combat unit whose members dislike and mistrust one another, even the commanding officers? This situation will eventually be taken to its worst extremes in later scenes.
The internal discord of the infantry is best illustrated by Platoon's most chilling sequence, as the troops run across a village hoarding weapons and food for the enemy. Their leader insists that they are being forced to do so by the Viet Cong, but that does not alleviate the suspicion that they are in league with their foes. The viewer believes him, but that's easy to do when your life is not at stake. The situation deteriorates, almost turning into another My Lai-style massacre, as the leader's wife is coldly put to death on the spot. Right after that, we see a weapon being put to the head of a child, bringing us to the realization of the dehumanizing, demoralizing nature of war. Anyone acting in that manner has lost a vital part of himself, a tragedy in its own way.
The film takes the effort to give us realistic, well-defined characters. Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe evoke our sympathy as kindred spirits; Sheen as the green recruit, Dafoe as the three-year veteran; both as decent people trying to make the best of a bad situation. Tom Berenger is chilling as their moral foil, a man who's seen too much and experienced too much, to the point where he can no longer distinguish between right and wrong.
The supporting cast members all deliver solid performances.
"Platoon's" only serious flaw is that the voice-over narration seems intrusive at times. Much of the information given is already conveyed--whether explicitly or not--through what's shown onscreen.
Towards the very end, there's one odd bit of heavy-handed symbolism that doesn't quite ring true, though I could see what Stone was trying to get across there. Nonetheless, taken as a whole, the film is a valuable historical document, a vital record of a much-debated chapter in American history.