Hollywood does Nam...Not Best of Both Worlds

Rating: 5/10 (15 January 2005)

Stone's Platoon certainly has one thing going for it: potential. I just never thought that it lived up to it. For being a movie about the second most morally ambiguous war in American history (WWI being the first), it was too cut and dry. The Freudian psyche is blatantly paraded around via DeFoe (superego) and Berenger (id), with Sheen as the ego. It too overtly says "this=good" and "that=bad." Vietam is about gray, not black and white.
Also, it felt very sophomoric. The soldiers' swearing seemed more like they were trying to act tough. They kept saying how everything was politics, and "the man" was tying to keep them down. Perhaps this movie is where we get our mental commercialized image of Vietnam troops, but I thought it was cheesy. The entire cast, especially Charlie Sheen, felt melodramatic and maudlin.
Stone's camera work was decent, but at time it felt jumbled, though this served the battle scenes well. They were probably the best part of the movie.
My biggest complaint is Elias's death. If he was running when he got shot, why wouldn't he just fall forward? Why kneel and raise your arms to the heavens, then fall sideways? It sure does make a nice box cover. It's this sort of overly-dramatic sequences that bugged me throughout the film.
Overall, Platoon seemed more like a commercial Hollywood blockbuster cashing in on the war than a mature statement on it. Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket was released within a year of Platoon, and better shows the dehumanization of war (It's a Jungian thing). Both bow before Apocalypse Now, which stars Martin Sheen, Charlie's father, as he is sent to execute Kurtz, who would make Barnes wet his pants. Stone wishes he could be Coppola.
Entertaining, but nothing more:C+