As a recreation of Vietnam hell, it surpasses, which is both good and bad

Rating: 8/10 (2 January 2010)

Platoon (1986)
A movie with one goal: recreating the hell of war, Vietnam specifically but war in general. And it succeeds. It has strong acting, spectacular special effects, lots of rain and night shots (and snakes and bugs), a lot of death from every possible cause, and a steady, suspenseful pace. It's a really good movie, and at times really sucks you in.
It's also a movie with lots of well used themes, with stereotypes (in the soldiers) and with more stereotypes (very cardboard, in the enemies). And there is no real plot. There is a progression, yes, and things go from bad to worse until the climax of an ending. But the development of the characters and their interactions is thin, and the mission of the platoon, whatever it quite is, lacks clarity.
And a question might rise for anyone looking for a statement about Vietnam--was it really so ruthless and murderous, soldiers killing soldiers and civilians so readily? Or is this the worst of the worst? And if so, shouldn't it make that clear? Not that fiction needs to be accurate, but if we go back to the goal of showing what war is like, then this might not be what war is like. This is what a demented, blood thirsty platoon looks like, led by the evil selfish soldier played by Tom Berenger. With a couple of heroes holding things together, like the super fighter played by Willem Dafoe.
There are of lots of regular guys, all of them interesting and sympathetic--Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker as examples. And there is a ton of trivia, too, outlined in detail in the IMDb page. Director Oliver Stone wanted the movie to be realistic in the details, too, and went to some extreme to pull that off. I don't think he wanted an original movie (it's no Apocalypse Now, for sure), but he wanted a mainstream, dramatic, moving experience, which he got.