"Hell is the impossibility of reason"...

Rating: Null/10 (12 August 2013)

"Rejoice O young man in thy youth" - Ecclesiastes. Written and directed by Oliver Stone, "Platoon" is considered as one of the best war movies ever made. Another masterpiece of the same director, also with Vietnam war topic is "Born on the Fourth of July" with Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic real life war veteran, based on true story. Oliver Stone took part in Vietnam war (he served there from September 1967. until November 1968. being wounded twice and receiving couple of military decorations for his participation). After he returned home he decided to put his war experiences into a script of fictionalized war story which many years later was transformed into a movie inspired by war experiences that Stone had in Vietnam. That was how "Platoon" was made. A story with authentic background.
Not popular with US.Army because it is telling of highly negative side of the war (showing terrible war atrocities against civilians and horrors of fighting in the jungle) "Platoon" is a strong and emotional story about different characters of different people put together on inevitable collision course with each other. Those hidden virtues and faults of those people have always been in themselves, they are only emphasized in a war madness that surrounds them. Three main characters Sgt.Barnes (Tom Berenger) on one side, Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe) on the opposite one and private Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) between them come from different life backgrounds and often have opposite and confronting perceptions of the war and life itself. In every war, in every army, on both sides in every armed conflict there were always and there will always be people like three of them and people around them. Movie shows platoon divided between Elias and Barnes two centers of gravity and those who choose to be with one or the other.
Sgt.Barnes is a battle hardened and ruthless warrior. A man who does n't care much for himself and others when it comes to having fire contact with the enemy. He lost his humanity and became like a blood thirsty animal itching for fighting because it is the only meaning of his life left. What kind of life and pain formed his personality we can only guess, but outside of war he has no place, he has no purpose. And he knows that. Deep inside he hates himself for what he is and he does n't care if he is going to live or get killed. He openly challenges others to take on him ("It's just me and six of you guys, come on, no one's gonna know") but they don't dare to do anything. Two statements define his character and beliefs, first - "Now, I got no fight with any man who does what he's told, but when he don't, the machine breaks down. And when the machine breaks down, we break down. And I ain't gonna allow that in any of you. Not one" and second - "You smoke this to escape from reality. Well, I don't need to do that, I am reality " which is kind of his life statement.
Sgt. Elias is opposite of him. Battle hardened and experienced fighter too, but a man who can keep his balance, he will not cross the line, the point of no return that Sgt.Barnes crossed long time ago. Elias does n't have any illusions about the war, he had them on the beginning but they are lost meanwhile. As he says to Chris Taylor "We are going to lose this one" he considers it a wrong war to fight as he realized after disappointments that he had about its cause. If he lost his illusions he did not lose his humanity. A man who will do the right thing when it matters most and lose his life because of it.
Chris Taylor is rebellious and idealistic person who escapes from life at home full of restrictions and rules trying to gain an experience of his own and what he finds is not quite as what he expected, if he had any idealistic illusions they are soon crushed by harsh realities of war and the way it transforms people pushing the best and worst in them to the limits of human tolerance. In the end he is left deeply traumatized with psychological scars that will take many years to heal and become bearable.
Story about different characters of different people rejected by society but in war they have just what they need with some of them seeing it as a way to project worst parts of their personality and stay unpunished. As many other great movies, "Platoon" is a story about human character, about the best and worst in all of us. Part of us that makes us be the greatest humanists and part of us that makes us be the worst criminals. Chris Taylor puts it great when he says that he is "a child of two fathers - Elias and Barnes" because he has what both of them have. Humanity of Elias and killing instinct of Barnes because in the end he kills Barnes. Others are mere reflections like Sgt.O'Neill, an ordinary coward, psychopath Bunny, a dog of war released from his chains, or Rhah, King and Big Harold who can still find strength to joke after all. Joke is their best cure. For Chris and others there are many years left to heal from scars deep inside their souls as he says it in words that can be the point of the whole movie - "I think now looking back we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves and the enemy was in us... But be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach others what we know and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning to this life".