Platoon is a war movie and the first installment to Oliver Stone's Vietnam War trilogy (the other two films being Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth). It was produced by Hemdale Film Corporation and distributed by Orion Pictures. Platoon was written and directed by Oliver Stone.
The story is, young university student Chris Taylor has enlisted to join the fight in Vietnam. Things take an intense turn after the soldiers terrorize a village, which now makes Taylor and his fellow soldiers fight amongst themselves.
My Thoughts
One praise to give is the performances, mainly from Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, and Tom Berenger. Now I wasn't too surprised when it came to Dafoe and Berenger, they've done both comedy and serious works, so while they're performances are spectacular, it was pretty obvious they'd do well. The biggest surprise, at least for me, was Charlie Sheen. I knew he did more serious stuff such as this movie, but I was so in love with his comedy work with things like Major League, Hot Shots!, Scary Movie 3-4, and Two and Half Men (yes, I like that show, judge later), that I just never gotten around to his more serious movies. So when I finally watched this, I gotta admit Sheen did deliver an engaging performance.
Then there's the war scenes. Now the movie doesn't go over the top with those scenes, not that I'm complaining! What I mean is those scenes where it's an all out war are very realistic, which in return adds to the intensity to the movie whenever the soldiers aren't at each others throats.
Now for the movie's villain, Sgt. Barnes. At first it did seem like he was gonna be just another soldier, but as the movie went on, I saw he wasn't another run of the mill soldier. His physical appearance is a very stern and menacing face with really cold eyes. To add onto to that, in normal cases it would be very motivational to witness somebody have a whatever it takes to win attitude, but Barnes version is very twisted. How? The guy put a gun to somebody's daughter just to get any type of information. Yeah, not exactly a whatever it takes attitude I'd follow into war. Then we're lead to give the impression that he cares about his fellow soldiers. When that's not really the case. He cares more about how he lost something useful that would've helped win the war, then a life that's been lost.
The last thing I'll praise is the story. Now the film focuses on Chris Taylor but I'll get to that later, the other focus is Barnes and fellow soldier Elias, and their clashing ideologies. Both want to win, but with Barnes it's no sympathy for the enemy and screw your humanity. While with Elias, it's we still need to defeat the enemy, but we don't have to be animals about it. A very opposite but still admirable way of thinking when compared to Barnes. Because of these two, the platoon are split off into two groups, those who are on Barnes' side or Elias'. Where is Chris in all of this? Well what we're witnessing is him needing to decide. So we do have this very interesting third aspect of someone caught in the middle.
I strongly recommend Platoon. Whether you're just a film buff or a fan of war films, Platoon is a masterpiece.
My final rating is, A Must Watch!
That's all for now. Come back on Monday, Jul 8th, for my A Look Back at review of, Twister. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
Oh, and have a Happy 4th of July.
No comments:
Post a Comment