Cartoonish Portrayal of the Vietnam War

Rating: 1/10 (12 May 2002)

Platoon is to the Vietnam War as Rocky IV is to heavyweight championship boxing. Oliver Stone's story of the experience of a US Army platoon in Vietnam in 1968 is so overdone it's laughable. While most or all of the occurrences in Platoon did occur over the 10+ year span of US military involvement in Vietnam, to portray these things happening to one small group of men in such a short time frame (weeks) gives a horribly skewed picture of the war. In Platoon, the men of the platoon see all of the following in the course of a week or two: US soldiers murdering civilians, US Soldiers raping civilians, a US Sergeant murdering another US Sergeant, a US Private murdering a US Staff Sergeant, US soldiers killed/wounded by friendly fire, 90%+ killed or wounded in the platoon. For Stone to try to pass this film off as the typical experience of a US soldier in Vietnam is a disgrace. Two Vietnam War films I would recommend are We Were Soldiers (the TRUE story of arguably the worst battle for US soldiers in Vietnam) and HBO's A Bright Shining Lie.