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| Orion Pictures | Release Date: December 19, 1986 |
Starring:
Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, John C. McGinley, Keith David, Kevin Dillon, Mark Moses, Reggie Johnson, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe
Summary:
A young recruit in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
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It was Francois Truffaut who said that it's not possible to make an anti-war movie, because all war movies, with their energy and sense of adventure, end up making combat look like fun. If Truffaut had lived to see Platoon, the best film of 1986, he might have wanted to modify his opinion. Here is a movie that regards combat from ground level, from the infantryman's point of view, and it does not make war look like fun.
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Platoon is a triumph for Oliver Stone, a film in which a visceral approach to violence, which has always set him apart, is balanced by classical symmetries and a kind of elegiac distance. This is not the Vietnam of op-ed writers, rabble-rousers or esthetic visionaries, not Vietnam-as-metaphor or Vietnam-the-way-it-should-have-been. It is a movie about Vietnam as it was, alive with authenticity, seen through the eyes of a master filmmaker who lost his innocence there.
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Platoon lacks the sweep, the heroic (and anti-heroic) vision of Apocalypse Now, and it lacks that film's signal strength, which was its evocation of the visceral appeal, the sheer romance of war, at least to those not fighting it. Some of Coppola's images in Apocalypse Now were among the most beautiful in contemporary film. Platoon is merely terrifying. [16 Jan 1987, p.6]
He makes a good job of it, though the wider aspirations to contemporary relevance seem dubious. Stone seeks large lessons in the experiences of ordinary men in battle, but it isn't clear Vietnam has anything new to offer: war is hell and somebody inevitably gets shafted, but the uniqueness of this conflict lies away from the military arena: in politics, psychology, and history. For all the purported naturalism, the film seems resolutely schematic, and the attitudes shaping the drama are far from open-ended.
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Oct 8, 2022
Of all the movies inspired by the Vietnam War this is one of the most compelling. From the point of view of a young recruit, he revealed that the worst enemy was not only in the trench, but also in the mirror. The movie that it put director Oliver Stone in the spotlight.
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Jan 30, 2021
Oliver Stone's best movie and one of the best movies of 1987.
In fact one of,if not already the best movie based on the Vietnam war.
Powerful & a must see.
In fact one of,if not already the best movie based on the Vietnam war.
Powerful & a must see.
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Jun 15, 2022
Platoon captures the life in war and great performance's from among it's actors and it's always great seeing this movie.
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Jul 13, 2018
Maybe not the best Vietnam film, but it's definitely up there. Berenger is almost a one man show, just incredible.
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Aug 30, 2021
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Mar 24, 2020
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Feb 17, 2023
This review contains spoilers, click expand to view.
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