Charlie Sheen's breakthrough performance!

Rating: 9/10 (8 July 2013)

Not really big on Oliver Stone, but his depiction of the Vietnam war is brilliant in this heavy, dark tribute to the men who died in the war.
Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, and Willam Dafoe all make one big triangle in this film, as it revolves around the conflict going on between them, and by them, I mean Willem Dafoe's squad, and Tom Berenger's squad in the Platoon, while Charlie Sheen is caught in the middle to deal with both, struggling to maintain his sanity as the depression of the war gets to him every day.
All performances are excellent. Even though the beginning consists of Sheen being an innocent little girly man, the war progresses, and he becomes a brutal life risking grunt that ruthlessly kills everything in his path, showing how the war affects him mentally.
The sound of the film sounds muddled every time somebody opens their mouth, not sure what Stone's intentions were, but it won the Oscar for sound, so whatever. The film isn't centered around combat, or the realism of war, it's centered around the duality of men, and how the war affects the minds of the soldiers, and the different types of soldiers that faced the war.
The beginning scenes consist of the Platoon getting to know each other, leading up to one of the most infamous and controversial scenes in cinema history, the village. It's interesting to see different characters of different personalities conflict each other over being with a different squad leader, like are you guys in high school? Either way they find a way to make it more intense.
Not too heavy on atmosphere, history, or in depth messaging like Apocalypse Now or The Deer Hunter, but it gets it around pretty easy, and the message about the war bringing out the best or the worst in men is carried out pretty easy also. Very excellent war film, isn't along the lines of Saving Private Ryan, (my favorite war film) but definitely give it a viewing.