Intense, difficult

Rating: 9/10 (22 August 2008)

Most will find this ultra realistic Vietnam war story a difficult film to watch, especially those who lived through that era. I had put off seeing this all these years since I was afraid of the memories it would bring back, and I was never even in the service. One of the few statements that Dick Cheney has made that I identify with is, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service." Truth be told staying out of Vietnam was a priority of mine, as well as most of my friends - the specter of the draft was always there. Student deferments were the method of choice for accomplishing avoidance for a lot of kids. But then in 1969 came the draft lottery - every day of the year was assigned a number and the lower your number the more exposed you were to being drafted. The lottery was televised and I remember sitting in a large room with about sixty guys and hearing the groans as the low numbers were drawn out of the hopper. This was truly a surreal experience, a mild version of Russian roulette. Many of those with low numbers opted for the method of last resort - flight to Canada. I offer this memory as but one that this film triggered. Almost everyone who lived through the Vietnam war era was scarred by it - few got off scott-free, including of course the countries involved (estimated U.S. deaths 58,000, with 300,000 wounded; estimated Vietnam deaths in excess of one million). The wounds are still healing.
The most acute memories this movie brought back were recollections of the clips on the nightly news which indeed had the same feel as this movie. Oliver Stone's having served in Vietnam lends credence to this harrowing tale; you have to assume that it is to no small extent autobiographical.
The satire of "Tropic Thunder" notwithstanding, no matter the the backstage antics, judgment should be rendered on the quality of the final product. And "Platoon" ranks high on that scale. The performances are uniformly good, presenting us with an ensemble of believable characters.
The real quality of the film lies in its focus on how the soldiers dealt with the constant backdrop of anxiety, chaos, and fear. This is captured so well that those emotions are transmitted to the viewer, albeit at what is probably a one per cent level of what the actual soldiers experienced, but enough to cause troubled sleep. There are no battle charts or high level officers discussing strategy here, just what the men in this platoon were facing on a daily basis. One of the values of the film is that it dispels much of the mystery as to how some of the horrendous things that were reported at the time (like civilians being killed, villages burned, officers fragged) could happen. And you see why using any drugs to get you through the day made perfect sense. It makes you a lot more hesitant to pass judgment on the actions of soldiers while sitting in the comfort of your home.
I think this is the least political of Stone's films. There seems to be a desire just to "tell it like it was." The political back-story never enters into the picture. There were not many people who served in Vietnam with the intelligence and movie-making skills of Stone and it is good that he has given us this film as one portal to understanding what happened on the ground in Vietnam.
I have always been curious as to whether I would have lasted ten minutes or five on the ground in Vietnam. Seeing this movie indicates to me that the latter is probably the case.