Born on the Fourth of July (1989) Author: comix-man (comix_man_1@yahoo.com) from USA What defines a great film? I believe that for a movie to be great, it should move you. It should make you think. It should make you reconsider your views and outlooks. It should make you take a closer look at its subject matter. It should draw attention to itself. Above all, you should gain some amount of enjoyment from a great film. I believe that BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY was a great film. I say this because, whether or not you agree with Ron Kovic's message, and although Oliver Stone almost ruined it with his attempts to personalize reality, the movie still made people stop and look. It literally defined the Vietnam War for a generation of Tom Cruise fans, and made many more aware of what the vets went through. The cinematography, score and fabulous acting made it a pleasure for many people to watch, if only to see how Cruise would deliver his next line. The film grossed $70,001,698 nationwide.

In 1989, when BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY was released, movie tickets cost five dollars. Therefore, over fourteen million American people went to the theater to see this movie. The number of viewers increases when you take into consideration the people who rented it on video or watched a television broadcast. It had that special something that made people think about issues that they might not have thought about before. It is lamentable that by 1989, many of the members of Generation X had paid little or no attention to the Vietnam War, even though only sixteen years had passed since the war's end. The younger generation was reminded that the war did, indeed, happen, and that the country was still being lambasted with the side effects. The camera work was extremely effective in relaying the messages in the film. Different moods within the film were indicated by different tints in the color. Combats were filmed in red, while blue indicated sadness, and white tints where used in the dream sequences. Whether intended or not, the colors of choice also coincide with that of the American flag, which is very appropriate for the film. The film also employed a wide variety of interesting angles without becoming confusing to the viewer.

The musical score is one of the best of all time. John Williams is a genius in the music industry. His fabulous music can make a film feel the way it was intended to. He seems to simply know what sequence of notes will produce what emotions. Along with Williams' music, the score also includes some of the popular music from the time of the film's setting. For instance, AMERICAN PIE by Don McLean, MY GIRL by the Temptations, and MOONRIVER by Henry Mancini, all give the viewer who remembers the music a sense of nostalgia, taking them back to those years. Two words sum up why the movie got the attention it did: Tom Cruise. Many critics were skeptical whether or not the pretty boy of RISKY BUSINESS and TOP GUN fame had what it took to portray a real life Vietnam veteran and make the audience believe he was that person. Fans crowded into the theaters to watch Cruise's handsome face (which was not so attractive through most of the film). Critics went to watch him blow the role. But he proved himself and went above and beyond what was expected of him in one of the most moving performances I have ever seen. He literally became Ron Kovic.

Many people were affected by BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY. It had great cinematography. Its soundtrack was inspiring and beautiful, pulling out of the viewer all possible emotions. Tom Cruise's performance as Ron Kovic blew almost everyone away. In short, BORN ON THE FORTH OF JULY has what it takes to be a great film. It overcomes Stone's blatant manipulation of facts, such as the violent conflict that in the movie occurs during a republican convention, but in reality occurred during a democratic convention. Powerful and touching, it drives its point home and back again, never missing a beat. 8 out of 10 stars Was the above review useful to you? Born on the Fourth of July Movie Review (1989) | Roger Ebert Tweet For weeks now, we've been reading in the papers about public apologies by governments of the Eastern bloc. The Russians admit they were wrong to invade Afghanistan and Czechoslovakia. The East Germans tear down the Berlin Wall and denounce the secret luxuries of their leaders. The Poles and Hungarians say Marxism doesn't work very well. Advertisement There is a temptation for an American, reading these articles, to feel smug. And yet - hold on a minute, here.

We had our own disastrous foreign policy mistake, the war in Vietnam. When is President Bush going to get up before Congress and read an apology to the Vietnamese? Never, is the obvious answer. We hail the Soviet bloc for its honesty but see no lessons for ourselves. And yet we have been issuing our own apologies, of a sort. A film like Oliver Stone's "Born on the Fourth of July" is an apology for Vietnam, uttered by Stone, who fought there, and Ron Kovic , who was paralyzed from the chest down in Vietnam. Both of them were gung-ho patriots who were eager to answer their country's call to arms. When they came back home, they were still patriots, hurt and offended by the hostility they experienced from the anti-war movement. Eventually, both men turned against the war, Kovic most dramatically. He and his wheelchair were thrown out of the 1972 Republican convention, but in 1976 he addressed the Democratic convention. And if you wanted to, you could say his 1976 speech was the equivalent of one of those recent breast-beatings in the Supreme Soviet.

We do apologize for our mistakes in this country, but we let our artists do it instead of our politicians. Advertisement Kovic came back from the war with a shattered body, but it took a couple of years for the damage to spread to his mind and spirit. By the time he hit bottom he was a demoralized, spiteful man who sought escape in booze and drugs and Mexican whorehouses. Then he began to look outside of himself for a larger pattern to his life, the pattern that inspired his best-selling autobiography, Born on the Fourth of July. Writer-director Stone, who based his earlier film " Platoon " on his own war experiences, has been trying to film the Kovic story for years. Various stars and studios were attached to the project, but it kept being canceled. And perhaps that's just as well, because by waiting this long Stone was able to use Tom Cruise in the leading role. Nothing Cruise has done will prepare you for what he does in "Born on the Fourth of July." He has been hailed for years now as a great young American actor, but only his first hit film, " Risky Business ," found a perfect match between actor and role. " Top Gun " overwhelmed him with a special-effects display.

"The Color Of Money" didn't explain his behavior in crucial final scenes. " Cocktail " was a cynical attempt to exploit his attractive image. Even in " Rain Man ," he seemed to be holding something in reserve, standing back from his own presence. Advertisement In "Born on the Fourth of July," his performance is so good that the movie lives through it. Stone is able to make his statement with Cruise's face and voice and doesn't need to put everything into the dialogue. The movie begins in the early 1960s with footage of John F. Kennedy on the television exhorting, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." Young Ron Kovic, star athlete and high school hero, was the kind of kid waiting to hear that message. And when the Marine recruiters came to visit his high school, he was ready to sign up. There was no doubt in his mind: There was a war in Vietnam, and his only worry was that he would miss the action. He knew there was a danger of being wounded or killed, but, hell, he wanted to make a sacrifice for his country. Advertisement His is the kind of spirit all nations must have, from time to time.

The problem with the Vietnam War is that it did not deserve it. There was no way for a patriotic small-town kid to know that, however, and so we follow young Kovic from his last prom to the battlefield. In these scenes, Cruise still looks like Cruise - boyish, open-faced - and I found myself wondering if he would be able to make the transition into the horror that I knew was coming. He was. Stone was in combat for a year. In "Platoon," he showed us firefights so confused that we (and the characters) often had little idea where the enemy was. In "Born on the Fourth of July," Stone directs a crucial battle scene with great clarity so that we can see how Kovic made a mistake. That mistake, which tortures him for years afterward, probably produced the loss of focus that led to his crippling injury. Advertisement The scenes that follow, in a military hospital, are merciless in their honesty. If you have even once, for a few hours perhaps, been helpless in a sickbed and unable to summon aid, all of your impotent rage will come flooding back as the movie shows a military care system that is hopelessly overburdened.

At one point, Kovic screams out for a suction pump that will drain a wound that might cost him his leg. He will never have feeling in the leg, but, God damn it, he wants to keep it all the same. It's his. And a distracted doctor absent-mindedly explains about equipment shortages and "budget cutbacks" in care for the wounded vets. Back in civilian life, Kovic is the hero of a Fourth of July parade, but there are peaceniks on the sidewalks, some of them giving him the finger. He feels more rage. But then his emotional tide turns one night in the backyard of his parents' home, when he gets drunk with a fellow veteran, and he finds they can talk about things nobody else really understands. It is from this scene that the full power of the Cruise performance develops. Kovic's life becomes a series of confusions: bar brawls, self-pity and angry confrontations with women he will never be able to make love with in the ordinary way. His parents love him but are frightened by his rage. Eventually it is suggested that he leave home.

Advertisement In a scene of Dantean evil, Stone shows Kovic in Mexico with other crippled veterans, paying for women and drugs to take away the pain, and finally, shockingly, abandoned in the desert with another veteran with no way to get back to their wheelchairs or to town. It's the sort of thing that happens to people who make themselves unbearable to other people who don't give a damn about them. (In a nod toward "Platoon," the other crippled veteran in the desert is played by Willem Dafoe , co-star of that film; the other co-star, Tom Berenger , is the Marine who gives the recruitment speech in the opening scenes.) "Born on the Fourth of July," one of the best movies of the year, is one of those films that steps correctly in the opening moments and then never steps wrongly. It is easy to think of a thousand traps that Stone, Kovic and Cruise could have fallen into, but they fall into none of them.

Although this film has vast amounts of pain and bloodshed and suffering in it, and is at home on battlefields and in hospital wards, it proceeds from a philosophical core: It is not a movie about battle or wounds or recovery, but a movie about an American who changes his mind about the war. The filmmakers realize that is the heart of their story and are faithful to it, even though they could have spun off in countless other directions. This is a film about ideology, played out in the personal experiences of a young man who paid dearly for what he learned. Maybe instead of anybody getting up in Congress and apologizing for the Vietnam War, they could simply hold a screening of this movie on Capitol Hill and call it a day. Popular Blog Posts BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989) Movie Review - YouTube BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY (1989) Movie Review Want to watch this again later? Sign in to add this video to a playlist. Need to report the video? Sign in to report inappropriate content. The interactive transcript could not be loaded. Loading... Rating is available when the video has been rented. This feature is not available right now. Please try again later.

Published on Feb 20, 2015 31 DAYS OF OSCAR: Tom Cruise plays veteran Ron Kovic, in the true story directed by Oliver Stone. Best Picture Nominee: 1989 Super Reviewer ½ This is the second film in Oliver Stone's trilogy about the Vietnam War, and for this one, he decided to adapt (along with Ron Kovic), Kovic's autobiography about his life, and how he went from proud and patriotic all-American to crippled war veteran who became a fervent anti-war protestor. And you know what? This film really is terrific. Yes, it has IMPORTANT stamped all over it, and sure, it is emotionally manipulative and takes a very "damned if you do, damned if you don't" stance towards the experiences of veterans, but we need stuff like this, and it is a very welcome voice in the debate about the experiences of Vietnam veterans and how one's whole life can be shattered and changed once they experience unimaginable horrors and return home to a country that changed so drastically in just a short amount of time.

This is all very fascinating stuff, and, despite the polemic nature of things, it is well done, and even though a bias is present, all sides do get some sort of representation, so the film isn't quite on the same level as something by Michael Moore for example. Kovic was and is a very proud American, and yes, the film proves you can still be very patriotic even if you're anti-war. It's really a good blend of character study and philosophy, and that wasn't something I was expecting. It's also not nearly as heavy handed as I was expecting, though it is very heavy with the sentimentality, especially where John Williams's (solid) score and the cinematography (everything is shot in filters of either red, white, or blue depending on the emotional level or context of things) are concerned. The cast that Stone rounded up is quite notable too. There's tons of recognizable names present, even if many of them have no more than just a few moments or even a couple of lines of dialogue. The big roles are cast wonderfully though, featuring the likes of Kyra Sedgwick, Willem Dafoe, Raymond J. Barry, and Tom Cruise in the lead as Kovic.

This was the first time Cruise tried for something dramatic, serious, and very challenging. Not only did he pull it off, but this is still one of his all time best performances. You know, the kind which prove he really can act. There's lots of great moments throughout, and they all are at different emotional levels. Two that really stick out for me however, are scenes that are dramatic (and are supposed to be), but still managed to unintentionally be hilarious as well. Those two scenes are the argument/breakdown where Ron screams profanities and the word penis loudly at his mother while drunk, and the wheelchair fight between Cruise and Dafoe. I felt kinda bad laughing, but I really just couldn't help it. No matter your opinions on Cruise, Stone, or the subject matter, you really should give this one a watch. It is designed to provoke all sorts of reactions, and though it is unapologetic in its presentation, it is a worthy and remarkable film. Chris Weber Super Reviewer ½ This is some fine directing right here from Mr. Political Subject himself. This movie uses one of the oldest tricks in the book for dramatic effect....Slowmotion....and it does it really well.

Tom does possibly his best role here? And it's a very interesting story. Willem Dafoe makes a brief but oscar worthy apperence. There are a lot of very beautiful shoots in this movie. Escpecially that first shoot after we cut to the war. That is just iconic. This movies story draws many similarities to The Deer Hunter but it's still very diffrent and uniqe. A really good movie and a great work by Tom Cruise Martin Sahlin Super Reviewer Cruise pulls out all the stops in his visceral portrayal of a guy who goes from trusting and unthinking patriot to wounded and wondering casualty of the Vietnam War. Certainly one of the very best of this genre, it's core point simply a question : when has blind obedience ever been an American ideal? Kevin M.

Williams Movie Review - - Review/Film; How an All-American Boy Went to War and Lost His Faith - NYTimes.com Review/Film; How an All-American Boy Went to War and Lost His Faith By VINCENT CANBY Published: December 20, 1989 LEAD: As a teen-ager in Massapequa, L.I., in the 1960's, Ron Kovic believed in all of the right things, including God, country and the domino theory. He was Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy, good-looking, shy around girls and a surreptitious reader of Playboy. He was the archetypal son in a large archetypal lower-middle-class Roman As a teen-ager in Massapequa, L.I., in the 1960's, Ron Kovic believed in all of the right things, including God, country and the domino theory. He was Jack Armstrong, the all-American boy, good-looking, shy around girls and a surreptitious reader of Playboy. He was the archetypal son in a large archetypal lower-middle-class Roman Catholic family.

When he competed as a member of the high school wrestling team, he wanted to win, and when he lost a match, he wept. Winning was the way he measured his belief in himself. He didn't question the values that shaped his optimism. On graduating from high school, he enlisted in the Marine Corps to fight in Vietnam. ''Communists are moving in everywhere,'' he told his somewhat more skeptical classmates. Home and hearth were endangered. Ron Kovic, who really was born on the Fourth of July, was ready when his country called. In 1968, during his second tour of duty in Vietnam, a bullet tore through his spinal column. He returned home a paraplegic, paralyzed from the waist down, emotionally as well as physically shattered. That was the beginning of a long, painful spiritual rehabilitation that coincided with his political radicalization. By the time the war ended, Ron Kovic had become one of the most restless and implacable spokesmen for Vietnam Veterans Against the War. Childhood was forever gone. Taking ''Born on the Fourth of July,'' Mr.

Kovic's fine spare memoir about this coming of age, published in 1976, Oliver Stone has made what is, in effect, a bitter, seething postscript to his Oscar-winning ''Platoon.'' It is a film of enormous visceral power with, in the central role, a performance by Tom Cruise that defines everything that is best about the movie. He is both particular and emblematic. He is innocent and clean-cut at the start; at the end, angry and exhausted, sporting a proud mustache and a headband around his forehead and hippie-length hair. Though ideally handsome, Mr. Cruise looks absolutely right, which is not to underrate the performance itself. The two things cannot be easily separated. Watching the evolution of his Ron Kovic, as he comes to terms with a reality for which he was completely unprepared, is both harrowing and inspiring. Written by Mr. Stone and Mr. Kovic, the screenplay is panoramic, sometimes too panoramic for its own good. It covers Ron's childhood, his teen-age years, his enlistment, the tour of duty in Vietnam and his long recuperation in a Bronx veterans' hospital, an institution that makes Bedlam look like summer camp.

No other Vietnam movie has so mercilessly evoked the casual, careless horrors of the paraplegic's therapy, or what it means to depend on catheters for urination, or the knowledge that sexual identity is henceforth virtually theoretical. One of the film's problems is that it becomes increasingly generalized as it attempts to dramatize Mr. Kovic's transformation from a wide-eyed Yankee Doodle boy to an antiwar activist. The film is stunning when it is most specific. There is the nighttime mission when Ron's outfit slaughters a group of Vietnamese peasants in the belief that a Vietcong patrol has been ambushed. In the confusion of a fire fight, Ron shoots one of his own corporals through the neck. When he tries to confess to murder, he is given absolution by an officer who tells him that he is probably mistaken and that, anyway, these things happen. Equally agonizing are the posthospital sequences when Ron returns to his well-meaning but bewildered family in Massapequa, where he is presented as the grand marshal of the annual Fourth of July parade. People are always trying to help. ''I'm O.K.,'' he says, or ''I'm all right'' or ''O.K.

O.K.'' But there is no understanding. There is a fine old family row when Ron comes home one night from the local bar, drunk as has become his habit. In a fury, he pulls out the catheter. His mother calls him a drunk. His father tries to get him into his room. Ron cries out about his inoperative penis. His mother screams, ''I will not have you use the word penis in this house.'' The film turns less persuasive as Ron acquires his new political consciousness, possibly because, given everything that has gone before, the transformation is so obligatory to the drama. Mr. Stone's penchant for busy, jittery camera movements and cutting also do not help. Though they reflect Ron's earlier state of mind, they start to obscure the character of the man they mean to reveal. Every member of the large cast is exemplary. It includes Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava as Ron's parents; Kyra Sedgwick as his high school girlfriend; Frank Whaley, who is especially good as a fellow vet, one of the few people with whom Ron can communicate when he comes home, and Cordelia Gonzalez as the Mexican whore who tries to persuade Ron that he's still a man.

The two stars of ''Platoon'' appear in cameo roles: Tom Berenger, as the marine who recruits Ron with his rousing pep talk at Ron's high school, and Willem Dafoe, as a fellow paraplegic vet Ron meets during a brief interlude in Mexico. An aging Abbie Hoffman, an icon of the Vietnam years, makes a sad, curious appearance, more or less playing himself during an antiwar demonstration set in the 1960's. (Hoffman committed suicide in April at the age of 52.) ''Born on the Fourth of July'' is a far more complicated movie than ''Platoon.'' It's the most ambitious nondocumentary film yet made about the entire Vietnam experience. More effectively than Hal Ashby's ''Coming Home'' and even Michael Cimino's ''Deer Hunter,'' it connects the war of arms abroad with the war of conscience at home. As much as anything else, Ron Kovic's story is about the vanishing of one man's American frontier. AND THEN REBORN BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, directed by Oliver Stone; screenplay by Mr. Stone and Ron Kovic, based on Mr.

Kovic's book; director of photography, Robert Richardson; edited by David Brenner; music by John Williams; production designer, Bruno Rubeo; produced by A. Kitman Ho and Mr. Stone; released by Universal Pictures. At Ziegfeld, 141 West 54th Street. Running time: 145 minutes. This film is rated R. Ron Kovic . . . Tom Cruise Donna . . . Kyra Sedgwick Mr. Kovic . . . Raymond J. Barry Mrs. Kovic . . . Caroline Kava Steve Boyer . . . Jerry Levine Timmy . . . Frank Whaley Charlie . . . Willem Dafoe Tommy Kovic . . . Josh Evans Jimmy Kovic . . . Jamie Talisman 12 Facts About ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ | Mental Floss 12 Facts About ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ YouTube Like us on Facebook The effects of the Vietnam War reverberated for years after it ended, both in the lives of the people who'd fought or lost loved ones and in our popular entertainment.

One man forever changed by the war was Oliver Stone, the maverick director who served as an Army infantryman from 1967 to 1968 and subsequently made three movies set in 'Nam: Platoon (1986) won him a Best Director Oscar; Heaven & Earth (1993) fizzled with critics and audiences; but in between was Born on the Fourth of July (1989), a star-spangled Tom Cruise vehicle that earned Stone another Oscar and Cruise his first Best Actor nomination. Here are a dozen items of interest about this turning point in both men’s careers. 1. AL PACINO ALMOST PLAYED RON KOVIC. This was in 1978, when Oliver Stone and Kovic first wrote the screenplay based on Kovic's 1976 book. William Friedkin (The Exorcist) was going to direct it; he dropped out and was replaced by TV director Dan Petrie; and then, less than a week before shooting was set to begin, the German financiers behind the project got cold feet and pulled out.

Stone later said that while Pacino would have been great, he had qualms about Pacino, then 38, being too old for the part. (Tom Cruise was 27 when he did it.) 2. KOVIC HAS A SILENT CAMEO. YouTube He can be seen in the parade at the beginning of the film, playing the wheelchair-bound soldier who flinches at the sound of firecrackers. 3. CHARLIE SHEEN'S FEELINGS WERE HURT. Charlie Sheen, who had starred in Stone's previous Vietnam blockbuster, Platoon, believed Stone was going to cast him in Born on the Fourth of July, too, and said (in 2011) that Stone had flat-out told him the part was his. When Cruise was cast instead, Sheen heard the news not from Stone but from his own brother, Emilio Estevez. Sheen said he was "hurt. ... I wouldn't have cared if Oliver had called me personally, based on what we'd been through." Stone didn't respond to Sheen's claim, but news outlets in 1989 reported that Sean Penn and Nicolas Cage had also been considered for the role. 4.

THEY CONSIDERED ACTUALLY PARALYZING TOM CRUISE. Stone found a nerve agent that would paralyze Cruise for a few days, and Cruise was open to the idea of using it. But the studio's insurance company—spoil sports—nixed it. 5. CRUISE PREPARED BY LIVING IN A WHEELCHAIR FOR A WHILE. Wanting to relate to Kovic's experience as much as possible, Cruise got himself a wheelchair and role-played for weeks, even staying "in character" when doing media interviews and going to studio meetings. He also accompanied Kovic on public outings to see how a pair of paraplegics were treated. (They were once asked to leave a store because their wheelchairs were leaving marks on the floor.) 6. VIETNAM WAS THE PHILIPPINES AND LONG ISLAND WAS DALLAS. Shooting on location in Vietnam wasn't an option (U.S.-Vietnamese relations were still a bit frosty), so Stone used the Philippines as a stand-in.

(That's where the Mexico scenes were shot, too.) As for the scenes set in Ron's Long Island hometown and at the Republican convention in Miami, those were all shot in Dallas—not far from places Stone would soon revisit to make JFK . 7. KOVIC WAS SO MOVED BY THE FILM HE GAVE CRUISE HIS BRONZE STAR. Kovic had been skeptical when Cruise was first cast, but was soon won over by the actor's commitment to the role and his sincerity. When the film was finished, Kovic gave Cruise his Bronze Star as a token of his admiration. 8. UNIVERSAL PAID $500,000 TO MAKE ONE SCENE BIGGER. The film ends at the 1976 Democratic National Convention, with Ron about to give a speech. After seeing a rough cut of the movie, Universal ordered that the scene be re-shot with a larger crowd—6000 extras instead of the 600 Stone had used. It cost $500,000, but was accomplished in one day at L.A.'s Forum arena. 9. STONE LATER APOLOGIZED TO A POLICE DEPARTMENT.

In the film, Ron is shown being beaten up and arrested at an anti-war demonstration in Syracuse, New York. In real life, Kovic had not attended that event, which was peaceful and was not broken up by police (though others were; Stone had consolidated several incidents into one). After complaints from the Syracuse Police Department, Stone reportedly sent a letter of apology in March 1990. 10. KOVIC'S VISIT TO THE FAMILY OF THE SOLDIER HE KILLED WAS FICTIONAL. One of the most emotional sequences in the film is when Kovic travels to Georgia to meet the parents and widow of the soldier he accidentally killed in Vietnam. In real life, though Kovic expressed his remorse to the family publicly in his book, he never met them. Apologizing via a memoir isn't very cinematic, though, so Stone and Kovic invented a face-to-face scene. 11. STONE AND CRUISE WORKED FOR NEXT TO NOTHING. The director and star were both so enthusiastic about the film that they agreed to keep production costs low by forgoing their usual high salaries (Cruise's especially) in exchange for a percentage of the profits. It paid off.

The film cost about $18 million to make and grossed $161 million worldwide. 12. ITS TELEVISION DEBUT WAS DELAYED BY A REAL WAR. As you can imagine, it took a lot of work to make Born on the Fourth of July suitable for broadcast on network television. CBS had a version ready to air in early 1991, barely a year after the film's theatrical debut, but called it off because of the impending Persian Gulf War. It finally aired in January 1992. Additional sources: AMC Total Ratings: 30 (avg 4.5) Excellent Review Oliver Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July is not an adaptation of the memoir by Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, though that’s what the credits indicate. It’s an indulgent style showcase for Stone, who, with his longtime cinematographer Robert Richardson, employs every act of film trickery imaginable that doesn’t involve CGI effects. Tom Cruise, in a role that was a brave departure for him in 1989, plays Kovic in his adult years. Kovic grows up as a child of the American dream in 1950s Long Island.

He’s a God-fearing, baseball-hitting, patriotic lad who lives in an environment full of parades and malt shops. As a high school senior, young Ron doesn’t think twice about signing up for the Marines, believing that he’s doing the right thing for his country. He does two tours of duty in Vietnam, a time that changes everything. He mistakenly guns down a Vietnamese family; then, minutes later, he accidentally kills a fellow soldier, so Kovic’s mental torment is already hefty when he gets shot in battle, leaving him paralyzed. After a lengthy stay at an understaffed and filthy VA hospital, Kovic returns home to find the environment has changed. Where’s the red scare everyone was talking about? What happened to the American dream that he pursued? ‘I don’t feel like myself anymore,’ he tells a childhood friend. Kovic starts drinking, rejects God and his family, and wastes time whoring and boozing with other vets in Mexico, where he officially hits rock bottom before making amends with his recent past. Kovic’s story should be riveting on its own – a young man who realizes a little too late that his whole life has been a sham.

Stone, who co-wrote the movie with Kovic, is not content to let Kovic’s life speak for itself. Born on the Fourth of July is a mish-mash of extreme close-ups, slow motion photography, and heavy-handed imagery and sound effects. The result: Kovic’s story gets muffled in all of the gee-whiz technique, zapping any emotion and personal touch from the material. It’s tough to distinguish the subject from Stone’s attempt to wow us with bleached out shots and sound symbolism. John Williams’ saccharine score serves only to turn Kovic into more of a stylistic conduit. What’s so frustrating is that there are opportunities to show Kovic’s metamorphosis. One is when he takes a trip to visit an old flame (Kyra Sedgwick), now an anti-war protester. The other is the trip to Mexico. Both subplots are important because they open Kovic’s eyes to the failures in his life, but the most effecting parts of those scenes don’t involve any internal reflection. In Syracuse, it’s a student protest that goes violently awry; in Mexico, it’s Cruise and Willem Dafoe spitting at each other in the middle of a desert.

I’ll give Stone credit for capturing the craziness of Kovic’s life, but he fails to give a human face to his free fall. Stone, who (incredibly) won a Best Director Oscar, gives a cinematic face to it. You never feel that Kovic is the subject of his own movie. He’s indeed an outsider, but in the worst way. Aka Born on the 4th of July. Excerpt: Born on the Fourth of July Author Ron Kovic Tackles Veterans Affairs Excerpt: Born on the Fourth of July Author Ron Kovic Tackles Veterans Affairs July 1, 2016 – 7:00 AM – 0 Comments Go Big or Go Home With Jalapeno Bacon Mac & Cheese Grilled Cheese Forty years after the release of Born on the Fourth of July, the 1976 memoir that became the 1989 Academy Award-winning film starring Tom Cruise, author Ron Kovic gives us Hurricane Street (Akashic Books), a memoir about his 1974 movement to change the way Veterans Affairs hospitals cared for wounded soldiers.

Here is a haunting excerpt from the book that tells the story of Marty, a former Army Airborne Ranger who was shot and paralyzed in Vietnam in 1968 and seems to have given up on life. “My new group of friends at the Long Beach VA and I start getting together almost every day in back of D ward, sharing our thoughts and feelings about the war and the treatment we’re receiving at the hospital. Many speak of outright patient abuse, while others, like Marty and Willy, say they were punished for complaining about their treatment. I have been told that several patients have already been sent to the psychiatric ward because they complained. Marty says this is common practice by the staff to keep everyone in line. “There are a lot of things that happen here that no one ever talks about,” Marty tells me, taking a swig from his whiskey bottle hidden inside a paper bag. “Accidents that no one will ever report.” Marty Stetson is by far the most sarcastic and cynical of us all. Whenever Jafu brings up the subject of walking again, Marty goes crazy. “You’re never going to f—ing walk again!” he scolds. “You gotta just accept your f—ing injury, man.

This f—ing thing’s never gonna change.” With his long hair and wispy Ho Chi Minh beard, his emaciated body lying naked on his filthy sheet, he looks more like a survivor of Auschwitz than a Vietnam veteran. Marty is haunted by the war. His sad, mournful eyes say it all. A former Army Airborne Ranger who was shot and paralyzed in Pleiku in 1968, he seems to have given up on life. He speaks listlessly and without emotion, a scratchy whine that is both pathetic and stirs great compassion at the same time. It is a desperate sort of crying out for help. He once showed me a photograph of himself in his Ranger uniform with a parachute on his chest from when he was at jump school in Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was just before he went to Vietnam. In the photo Marty looks really confident. Marty’s been drinking a lot lately, Jim Beam whiskey. It’s his favorite. He used to ask me, when I was still in my chair, to go across the street to the liquor store and pick him up a bottle.

I’d return it to him in a paper bag but I had to be careful; if they caught me bringing alcohol into the hospital I could get in a lot of trouble. I know it’s not good for Marty but who am I to judge? He has been trapped in his bed for nearly six months now with a terrible bedsore on his right hip. Ever since I met him he’s been in bed trying to heal that sore. It occurred when one of the aides dropped him in the shower room. Marty said the aide was drunk and had come close to dropping him several times before. When you have a bedsore like this, you have to be disciplined and stay in bed. You’re stuck there twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. You can’t get up. You become completely dependent on the people around you. It’s not easy. You start to go crazy. You feel trapped. Some of the guys like Marty can’t take it anymore and they start drinking or using drugs. Marty’s been seeing one of the dietitians from the second floor and she’s started supplying him with drugs—marijuana, cocaine, uppers, downers, LSD . . . you name it.

Some guys become impatient and get up into their chairs. This only prolongs the problem and the sore gets even worse. Eventually the bone begins sticking out, and infection, high fever, and septic shock can set in; many patients have already died from this. It is an overwhelming and constant struggle to stay on top of this thing. Everyone has his own way of dealing with it. Sometimes you hear screaming and cursing. Others just lie silently on their gurneys—“doing their time,” as they call it, any way they can. Some talk to the chaplain, others the ward psychologist, but most just try their best to endure. Marty’s been in for surgery twice already but he refuses to stay in bed. He keeps getting up and making excuses. The bedsore is getting worse and an infection has already set in. The doctors and nurses repeatedly tell him that he’s got to stay in bed, but Marty doesn’t seem to care. He’s tired of doing time and seems incapable of the discipline and self-control it takes to heal a bedsore. He doesn’t want to talk about it and he doesn’t want to think about it. Instead, he gets lost in his music and alcohol and drugs.

He loves Jimi Hendrix and listens to him a lot. He’s also a fan of the Animals’ song “We Gotta Get Out of This Place.” He plays it again and again and says whenever it was played on Armed Forces Radio in Vietnam all the guys in his squad would start singing it. “I love this f—ing song!” shouts Marty, tears streaming down his face as he turns up the volume of his headset full blast, closes his eyes tightly, and dreams of the day he’ll finally escape. “We gotta get out of this place if it’s the last thing we ever do,” he mumbles. “We gotta get out of this place ’cause girl, there’s a better life for me and you. Now my girl you’re so young and pretty and one thing I know is true, yeah. You’ll be dead before your time is due,” he sings, slurring his words, his eyes still tightly shut, his head swaying back and forth, lost in another world, place, and time, far from the hospital and the paraplegic ward.” Reprinted with permission Akashic Books. Copyright 2016. Leave A Comment Uh-oh!

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Question: Who played Ron Kovic in the 1989 film ‘Born on the Fourth of July’?
Answer: Tom Cruise