Perhaps the Most Harrowing Vietnam Movie Ever Made

Rating: 9/10 (29 April 2005)

Platoon certainly shows the harsh realities of modern warfare. Our character, the ever-stereotypical wide-eyed "Naive Private," slowly grows more and more gritty, dark, and harsh with each new experience. While it does not have, say, the ridiculously overdone graphics of the movies that our children watch now, nor a particular scene thrown in for the ratings-grabbing "eye candy," it truly shows war as the hideous, realistic catastrophe that it is now. The viewer will watch a scene at the start of our movie, with our private staring, disembodied, at the body bags being shipped to America. Eventually the war rears its ugly head, and one body becomes 10, 10 becomes 50, 50 becomes a scene in which you cannot see the ground through the napalm.
As our private struggles with the ever-elusive "Charlie," or "VC," he is taken under the wing of one of his superiors. As he grows emotionally, and slowly becomes more used to the war, his teacher becomes more acknowledging of his presence, and indeed treats him as an equal. The echo of this would be his other superior, a battle-ready bruiser who definitely defines the word "prejudice." After the two sergeants fight against each other, the "teacher" *PLOT SPOILER* mysteriously dies... Our hero always has a feeling that his other superior was behind it, but can't prove it. After a particularly devastating attack, the private notices his senior, lying on the ground, completely untouched, but still acting completely arrogant. Our hero manages to salvage a Vietcong gun (Soviet AK-47 model, to be precise), and aims it threateningly at the sergeant.
"What are ya gonna DO, kid. Ya ain't gonna shoo-"...At this point a complete round lashes through the man's body, but, like our "Kid"'s superior, no-one will truly know who the killer is.
Maybe the best war movies I've seen, both for the realism its-self, and a true portrayal of what can happen when a young man is built on revenge.