Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) begins with a symbol of birth: the young soldier, Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen), is delivered from the womb of a large transport plane into the harsh light of Vietnam. One of the first images he sees are those of body bags, presumably the bodies of men whose place he has come to take. Through narration (letters written to his grandmother) and his encounters with other GIs, we learn that Chris is a twenty-one-year-old child of privilege who volunteered for Vietnam because he was convinced that young men who had grown up with less than him could teach him something about life. Like Oliver Stone, the war was to be his metamorphosis, his passage into manhood.
CHRIS VOICE-OVER: "I guess I have always been sheltered and special, I just want to be anonymous. Like everybody else. Do my share for my country. Live up to what Grandpa did in the First War and Dad in the Second. I know this is going to be the war of my generation."
Departing from most war film genre conventions, and drawing upon Stone's own combat experience, the film succeeds in conveying a visceral sense of the chaos, clamour, and fear that characterises warfare, and provides an almost physical sense of the heat, rain, and dirt of the jungle. The perspective is powerfully realistic, a ground level, infantryman's view of Vietnam - 'a white infantry boy's view of the war', as Stone acknowledges. The narrative is principally designed as Stone's personal reckoning with his tour of duty in Vietnam and a heartfelt testament to the moral lessons he drew from that experience. Indeed, long before we reach the concluding voice-over sentiments of Stone's alter ego, the new recruit Chris Taylor, that the experience represented a struggle for his soul, that in Vietnam 'the enemy was in us', it is apparent that the war is primarily viewed as a moral crucible, as an Eucharistic rite of passage.
The character of Chris Taylor is so interwoven with Oliver Stone's real-life experiences, that Sheen's performance provided something of an inner revelation: 'Through Charlie, I saw myself as a young man', Stone comments in his notes. 'And I could step back without any self-consciousness and see myself for the first time through that mirror of time. And it was sad. To see what I'd become in Vietnam through him. I mean, certainly part of me was stupid, ignorant, evil and I didn't have any realisation of that at the time….That's where the bottom line is. You find out if there is an intrinsic goodness or not. That's what the film's about.'
The theme is loss of innocence; to learn from war at too great a cost, to become a warrior and pay the price. Platoon argues that in circumstances of extreme stress a moral code can disintegrate.
SERGEANT BARNES: "You all, take a good look at this lump o'shit…Remember what it looks like. You fuck up in a firefight and I goddamn-guarantee you a trip out of the bush…in a body bag."
As the narrative progresses, Chris Taylor, finds himself in a completely different war from the faceless one being fought against the Vietnamese. Stone created the same tensions that there had been within his original platoon - the division between the redneck 'juicers' many of whom were gung-ho, and the 'heads', pot smokers just trying to get out of the war alive. As much as they battle the enemy, the film shows these groups on a collision course. In Vietnam, Platoon suggests, American GIs recreated the world back home, with its strife over lifestyles, race, region, and class. Since the nature of the war left no clear and honourable path to a resolution, some of the soldiers focused their resentments and their weapons on their comrades.
In Platoon, the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the Viet Cong are background figures in a more merciless family tragedy - a sibling rivalry between a good brother, an evil brother, and the youngest brother forced to choose between them. Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) represents the leader of the juicers and a man for whom combat and killing has become the only world. He is a character who has narrowed his perspective of survival to the ability to fight and therefore he often steps over the lines of human decency and morality. The acknowledged leader of the 'heads' is also a war-torn soldier, but an idealistic one. Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) is a survivor with a sleepy grin who wears two dice and a crucifix around his neck. He feeds recruit Taylor a hit of marijuana down the barrel of a gun. Elias is the platoon's conscience, its Shaman of compassion and racial harmony. The conflict between Elias and Barnes creates an inner war in the platoon, which solidifies the statement of the horrors of war, and the war in Vietnam in particular.
Caught between Dafoe's philosophical Elias and Berenger's ruthless Barnes is Sheen's Chris, both Everyman and Stone's alter ego, whose purity of soul becomes the stake in an allegorical battle of good and evil. As the film develops in almost Shakespearean fashion, Chris hangs suspended between these two factions with his life and ideals in the balance.
With Platoon Stone brought the portrayal of the Vietnam War to terrifyingly real new levels. By plunging the viewer into this madness the film captures the fear, disorientation, and crazed high of battle; we may gain an insight into what is possible when we've seen comrades cut to pieces and have no idea where the next bullet is coming from. One such scene features Kevin Dillon, who as Bunny, a young, ignorant southern white soldier, is a seething incendiary character waiting to combust. When the platoon enters a Vietnamese village they suspect aided in the killing of one of their men, Bunny explodes, savagely beating a peasant with the butt of his rifle - Bunny is modelled on a real person and the village scene is based on real events. And like Chris in the film, Stone both participated in the brutality and took action to stop it. When an old man frustrated him during the search of a Viet Cong pit, Stone made him 'dance' by firing bullets at his feet, but later, horrified by his own actions, he also intervened and stopped the rape of a village girl.
SERGEANT BARNES: "Ain't no need or time for a courtroom out here."
Perhaps the most dramatic scene is the death of Elias. Here, Stone moves away from his own experience, although he does feel the scene is symbolically in line with the death of the 'real' Elias. In the film, during the confusion of an ambush, Barnes tracks down Elias and, catching him unawares, shoots him. As he locks in his sights, Elias stares at him and smiles ingenuously. Moments later, several members of the platoon, including Barnes and Chris, are rescued by a chopper and they look down to see Elias, somehow still alive, running madly, being pursued by a group of Viet Cong who are riddling him with bullets. After stumbling several times, Elias is finally overcome and sinks in slow motion to his knees. He spreads his arms Christ-like above him while still more shots are fired, then falls forward as the rescue helicopter banks away into the sky.
Though Taylor is convinced that Sergeant Barnes is responsible, he is apprehensive as to how to confront him. The situation is resolved, however, when Barnes challenges Chris and the others who sided with Elias in their bunker, virtually daring them to attack him. This is one of Berenger's most accomplished scenes. He gives Barnes a bizarre vulnerability as he almost pleads with the men to have the courage to kill him. But when Taylor takes him on, he turns the tables and nearly stabs the young soldier until talked out of it.
In the film's final scenes, the platoon fights an apocalyptic battle with a large enemy force and is about to be wiped out when, in desperation, their captain (Dale Dye) orders an air-strike on their position. Taking advantage of the confusion of the battle, Barnes is about to silence Chris forever when the air-strike hits and the entire area is engulfed in flames. Although wounded, Chris survives to discover a severely wounded Barnes. Finally confronting his nemesis, Chris raises his rifle, but then hesitates until Barnes desperately snarls, 'Do it'.
Just as Chris's experiences parallel Stone's, the choice he must make is the choice Stone faced repeatedly. Would he abandon moral codes under intense fire, or would he attempt to maintain his humanity?
Charlie Sheen's role as Chris was crucial to the film. The part called for response more than stimulation, and required a level of understatement. Stone's approach with Sheen was more a process of communicating specific experiences than particular acting techniques. 'I tried to convey the way I felt in 'Nam', Stone explains. 'The fear I felt in the jungles for the first time. I was a kid from New York and it was suddenly like everything I'd read in Homer was coming true. I was with real warriors. To me, Barnes and Elias were like Achilles and Hector, and I was with them in another world. Most of all I wanted to convey to him how my sense of innocence changed over time. For me, that's the key to the movie.'
In the end Chris Taylor is the true son of both fathers, Elias and Barnes. Like Stone in Vietnam, he feels drawn to both good and evil, and the fact that Platoon can support such a paradox without ambiguity reflects not only it's classical structure but also Stone's contradictory nature.
CHRIS TAYLOR: "It's the way the whole thing works. People like Elias get wasted and people like Barnes just go on making up rules any way they want and what do we do, we just sit around in the middle and suck on it. We just don't add up to dry shit."
Reviewed by Adrian Gargett
Reader comments about Platoon
Derek Baldwin (DJBNJB@aol.com) writes:
Undeniably effective in some ways but fundamentally it is exploitative macho posturing. Crap, being blunt. Not as bad as The Deer Hunter but then so few films are.
Lizella (Email address withheld) writes:
My gosh, how could Derek say that? My opinion is totally different. This film made me think a lot, I regard it as a film you should learn from, like we should learn from our own past. It is good that such films remind us of our own history. So we do not forget ...!
Scarecrow (SCARCRW2000@aol.com) writes:
Memory test without watching it again<
Barnes made a quote and I can't remember it all.
He said: When the machine breaks down ????????????
Winnie (Email address withheld) writes:
Scarecrow, Barnes said "when the machine breaks down, we break down". In his point of view, the soldier involved in the war are just "machine gun".
Wanted to ask, What do you think the difference between Platoon and any other WWII films??
Jim (Email address withheld) writes:
I suppose the main difference is that this is a Vietnam film...
Matt (Email address withheld) writes:
Winnie i think you'll find that the main difference is that this film is an Iraqi war film!
Jim you stand corrected, i would listen to any other comments by jim or jimbob as they are obviosly unreliable!
Jim (Email address withheld) writes:
I didnt know they had jungles in Iraq Matt but I do indeed stand corrected.
Jennifer (NIHILITYx2@cs.com) writes:
I watched both Platoon and the more current Saving Private Ryan for a film class recently. In general, both films portray the bitter truths of our participation in wars... among the 'enemies' and ourselves. Platoon, particularly, reflected how such circumstances reveal the darker, more primitive nature of human beings. That ultimately "the enemy is us". Private Ryan, showed the aftermath...how does one survive surviving such a nightmare. As far as a 'combat film' goes, both revealed the irony that at times one can be sorry to be an american but also proud of what 'america' has overcome and accomplished.
Jim (Email address withheld) writes:
I disagree, what did America accomplished in Vietnam? The slaughter of 4,000,000 Vietnamese and the disillusionment of a generation? Platoon is very strongly anti-war and as the tagline shows "The first casualty of war is innocence". If anything it is anti-patriotism, showing that everyone has a personal struggle to overcome regardless of race and nationality.
Jared (Cheddabeatz@aoo.com) writes:
I have seen many war movies - Saving Private Ryan, Apocalypse Now, The Deer Hunter, Full Metal Jacket, etc. - and I still like Platoon the best. It is so realistic that often you forget you're watching a movie, and you think you're actually watching the war. Amazing acting, amazing directing, amazing movie.
Scott P (Email address withheld) writes:
Platoon really is a truth, its like the battle of the mind on a real battlefield. You cant decide: Evil and common or Good and Hated. It also is the real film that the men who fought in Vietnam deserve. Some think this is just a bunch of people shooting each other, And think this is good because of this. I hate these kind of people who get a kick out of it. Its Stone at his best, Better than Wall Street. He's not afraid to challenge the American, and with it, the world's view of itself.
I hate to go on but, Vietnam is seen as a dark moment. But its a lesson; You can help others but not all the time.
JimBob (Email address withheld) writes:
I disagree with classifying this as an anti-war movie. It's intentionally very ambigous in it's portrayal of the war. It passes few judgements on the people themselves. It is often depicted as simply a battle between good (sergeant elias) and evil (sergeant barnes), but that is quite a simple perception. We can understand why Barnes is like he is; we see his anguish at the death of his troops in several scenes and understand the powerlessness and consequent rage he feels at the unscene enemy he cant revenge himself upon (taking it out instead on the mental enemy he sees in the Vietnamese villagers) and although we dont condone what he does we should understand it, and in so doing understand that there is nothing as simple as good and evil. Life is just not like that. Elias (usually seen as the Jesus figure of this film) is just as ruthless as Barnes. In one scene he guns down an NVA solder in the back who was running away from him. As Chris says towards the end of the movie: "I often feel like a child born of these two fathers (referring to Elias and Barnes)". This is a comment on human nature. The old idea that people can be evil is just simple minded, we do bad and good things and the potential for both lies in us all. We like Charlie Sheen's character Chris despite his screaming:"It's fu***ng beautiful man!" While gunning down Vietamese soldiers in the back. Platoon is a study of human nature and the potential for both good and evil acts in us all and is to my mind very ambigous in it's portrayal of both. Oliver Stone (the Director) also knows his stuff, he won medals for bravery in combat twice in Vietnam and knows better than most the truth of what happened to normal guys in that war.
NorthSideEast (Email address withheld) writes:
Platton is not anti-American. Platton is not anti-patriot. Platton is a man's (Oliver Stone) artwork. Experience, philosophy, friends and family etc. Those are the governing factors of a famous film that you and I have watched and are discussing today. Forget all that you have thought, forget what you have read. Filmakers make movies,(motion pictures) in other words they make modern day plays. Many factors play into this process which is why I'm not going threw it. However one process of a film is very important to my point of which may hold some ground. The climax of the film is the murder of Elias. Elias is running threw a field under enemy fire. He was badly wounded prior by an American officer. Betrayed, and running from enemy fire Elias once again is betrayed by his brothers. Throwing his arms in the air he is slaughter by the enemy. Anti-American, it sure may seem so, but is that the truth. Elias threw his arms up in defeat, betrayed and left to die. The more I write about this the more it begans to sound anti-American. This film is not about America, the manufactorur of the Vietnam War. The film is about sin. Elias Saw the horror of war, the terror of judgement. He also saw the heartbreak of betrayal, and anarchy. Elias threw up his arms in defeat. Can you blame him?
Del (dangermouse275@hotmail.com) writes:
The first film to make me cry - say no more
Christine (Email address withheld) writes:
First movie I have ever heard reviewed as if it were a criminal in a court case.
I went to see this movie at the cinema when it was released with my first boyfriend who just happened to be a soldier in the British army. I was so concerned with my appearance whether he would put his arm around me whether I should put my arm around him, my hair, my lipstick and whether I looked fat in my new jeans that I missed most of the movie. Feeling horrendously shallow I got the chance to see the movie again with my next boyfriend, I fell asleep.
Sorry
BArry Mann (bajama@yahoo.com) writes:
Platoon was a good movie, but totally unbelievable, as it illustrated every stereotype created by the anti-war forces in the USA. Soldiers had low morale...Soldiers committed atrocities...soldiers fragged their own troops...soldiers smoked dope...southern soldiers were stupid racists...platoon commanders were young, ineffective officers who almost always got their own men killed...etc...
I think that, especially with the lies and embellishments of John Kerry coming to light, that the true story of the American Soldier in Vietnam will finally be known...hardworking, dedicated guys who didn't behave at all like the soldiers portrayed in Stone's diatribe. Stone's movie, and others like it have done alot of damage to the soldiers in America.
I know, it was a statement about war blah blah blah. It's just complete fiction. Please don't come away from this movie thinking that that's how it was in "Nam".
JV (amatyleon@earthlink.net) writes:
Hey Barry man...when the hell where you ever in Vietnam?
Don't talk about shit you don't know!
Scott P. [P is for Proactive] (Email address withheld) writes:
Barry man creating seriously typical stereotype of his own now. Image of very ignorant people making very general observations about things they have no knowledge of. For your information, Oliver Stone who wrote, directed and produced this is, would you believe it, a Vietnam Veteran! He should know, you Barry Man, on the other hand have not a clue about anything. Get your facts right. Oh and about that Anti-Kerry Propaganda, it's called dirtying, and it happens all the time. Also the reason why American soldiers have a bad name is because of films like Fahrenheit 9/11, which, would you believe it, is a DOCUMENTARY!
Touchee!
Barry Mann (Email address withheld) writes:
Why did you guys get so hostile? I offered an opinion that the movie is a complete fiction. ease back, boys! Let's have a nice conversation about this! I have made a serious effort to study and understand the war. There is alot more material, printed or otherwise about the war than Oliver Stone's self-serving vision. Read some of it! You guys have locked up upon Stone's history! Stone made that movie to make money! A movie about decent soldiers who didn't complain, smoke dope, or commit murder and rape wouldn't make any money!
Just watch the movie again, and think about what I said in my earlier post. I think you'll have an epiphany.
John Stoneman (Email address withheld) writes:
I read with interest the reviews and comments about Platoon with a sense of dismay. First of all the film is likely the best film ever made on the sad subject of war. In fact in my opinion it is likely one of the top films ever made. I presume that many of those that deem to critcize this major Oliver Stone effort have never seen the face of war. Well I have had for I served as a grunt in Vietnam in '72 and be assured the reality of what I saw in the movie brought back some real nightmares, as it should, for war is the ultimate madness and that I believe is part of Oliver Stone's important message in the film? Regardless, for those that sit in their armchairs and criticize this major Oliver Stone work I would remind them of the over 58,000 that gave their lives in Vietnam.
nouanda (Email address withheld) writes:
barry man,
you are on crack.
i guess the holocaust never happened in your mind either.
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