A Powerful Vision of Vietnam from Oliver Stone

Rating: 8/10 (18 April 2012)

PLATOON is a movie that didn't really impress me much when I first watched it, but I found that it grew on me after a few more viewings. I've never been into war movies but there's always been something about the Vietnam War that grabbed my interest. It didn't play out like a normal war. It was deep in the jungle and the soldiers that experienced it encountered more than your average wartime strain. The jungle is a beast all it's own and to find yourself battling in it's nightmare terrain where the enemy can and will come from all sides at any moment is terrifying. I love a good Vietnam War film, where the focus is on the experiences of the soldiers as opposed to achieving victory. APOCALYPSE NOW is one of my all-time favorite films period, and FULL METAL JACKET is an intense view of a soldier's life from boot camp through the horrors of the war. So when I sat down to watch PLATOON, my questions was: how well did Oliver Stone's vision of the war stand up to Coppola and Kubrick? PLATOON follows the experiences of one soldier, Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), as he arrives in Vietnam. An idealistic college student, Chris believed it was everyone's duty, not just the poor, to do their part in the war. Once he arrives, he discovers that nobility doesn't even enter the picture. It's all about survival and the law of the jungle, and he's caught in the conflict between the gung-ho Sergeant Barnes and the liberal Sergeant Elias.
I suppose my initial disappointment with the movie was all a result of personal biases. At first glance, the movie wasn't as visually impressive as Kubrick's 'Nam, and especially not Coppola's. Coppola had an incredible artistic vision when he created APOCALYPSE NOW. Every scene, every shot, every line of dialogue in that movie is powerful (in my personal opinion, anyway). And Kubrick's film was brutal in how it depicted the dehumanization of soldier's in the war. Oliver Stone's movie didn't feel as artistically influenced. It had an almost generic feel to the movie from the very beginning with the jungle-green opening credits over the shot of a passenger/cargo plane dropping a batch of fresh recruits in Vietnam. As I watched the film again, I found myself drawn into it's vision more and more. I still find Stone's vision less visually impressive than the others, but I am pulled in by the characters of the film (more than Kubrick's at times). PLATOON is an intense character piece where we experience the war through the eyes of someone going into a nightmare situation without knowing what to expect (just like the viewer). You sympathize with Chris and his comrades and feel the tension between the Elias and Barnes sides of the camp. You watch as Chris's idealism is slowly chipped away until there is nothing left but an almost feral nature and a code of honor when he seeks justice for one of his fallen friends.
My second problem with the film on its first viewing was the main character. I hadn't seen this movie until very recently, after the whole public meltdown of Charlie Sheen in the media. So my image of Charlie Sheen is that of a bizarre tale of how celebrity life and eat your sanity. Watching him as a bright-eyed, optimistic private was a hard pill to swallow. I just couldn't buy into it. I eventually overcame my views on Sheen and actually believe he did a better job than I originally gave him credit for. He's still a little hard to buy in such a powerful dramatic role (I mean, he did do HOT SHOTS) but he puts in a good performance. No where near as good as his father in APOCALYPSE NOW, but a good job regardless. There are actually a lot of great performances hereKeith David, Kevin Dillon, Forest Whitaker, etc. I admit Dillon did feel a little over the top as Bunny, but he remained in the realm of plausibility. You believe him as a someone who was probably a small-town jock back home but gets to stretch his legs a bit and goes a little far with the freedom to act in Vietnam. Speaking of over-the-top though, no one fits the bill better than John C. McGinley as O'Neill. It's OK though, because I've come to expect him to ham it up. The real powerhouses in the film are Willem Dafoe and Tom Berenger as Sergeants Elias and Barnes. These man are the real center of conflict in the picture. These two men have very different views on running the war in Vietnam and it's their head-butting and eventual confrontation that drives Private Taylor's final descent into total loss of innocence. It's truly a great story. Sure, I still don't believe it rises to the ranks of Coppola and Kubrick, but I definitely count this as one of the most iconic visions of Vietnam to come out of Hollywood.