Hands down the best film about the Vietnam War...

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 1999)

The big question about the Vietnam war is this: What were we doing over there? Thousands of young men died for no apparent reason. Oliver Stone makes no direct attempt to answer this question. Every bit of the movie's action takes place in the jungles of Vietnam around 1967 and 1968. However, the horror and madness we see on screen leaves you with a sad feeling in your heart and we realize we absolutely did not belong there, fighting amidst a civil war within a peasant country we knew nothing about. Stone himself fought in the war and this was his experience, with Charlie Sheen playing his alter ego. As Sheen says during the closing narration, "we didn't fight the enemy, we fought ourselves."
Many people have drawn comparisons between PLATOON and Coppola's APOCALYPSE NOW, a spectacular film in its own right. These are two distinctly different visions of the war, PLATOON being a gritty, documentary-like version with APOCALYPSE the surreal, fictionalized account. PLATOON is the better war film because of its honest, in-your-face style. Stone utilized hand-held cameras to capture combat in a way never seen before. We get to know the characters of this platoon and how 'civil wars' probably broke out within American units themselves. There are no tricky shots, nor do we see any glamorization of war, as seen in such films as THE RED BADGE OF COURAGE. This is not an artistic depiction of Vietnam like APOCALYPSE NOW. It is bloody realism shown in quite graphic detail, the way it may have been, based on Stone's own experiences.
The supporting cast is superb, painting a non-stereotypical portrait of tragic characters. Of course, Tom Berenger's 'Barnes' and Willem Dafoe's 'Elias', are symbolic of the good and evil that most likely existed within some units. These two characters are essential to the inner struggles going on in Sheen's 'Chris'. The battle scenes are shot in such a way that we are put right in the middle of the action, seeing what the soldiers saw. It is nearly impossible to know where the enemy is and who you are shooting at, and there is a frightening scene involving Sheen as the platoon's lookout, who is paralyzed with fear, unable to act while the enemy creeps upon them. The madness of the war is more emotionally powerful than in APOCALYPSE because we are closer to these events and there are virtually no breaks in intensity.
I ask anyone who disagrees with my assessment regarding this film and APOCALYPSE to watch both back to back. Anti-war films are at their best when we are moved emotionally, and I assure you will be more wiped out after PLATOON. Again, APOCALYPSE is a great movie, however, do you really care about a fictional mission up a river to kill an insane American? You be the judge. PLATOON and SAVING PRIVATE RYAN are the two most emotionally shattering and best anti-war films.