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Okay, i really liked Slay's thread like this, and I wanted to make my own if I could...And so my first review is:
Platoon(1986, directed by Oliver Stone)
(Five out of Five stars)
There have been countless war movies over the decades, especially in current years, and while many of them are very good, none of them reach the the level of brutal emotional honesty of Oliver Stone's best film, Platoon.
Based upon Vietnam veteran Stone's personal experiences, it stars Charlie Sheen in one of his first film roles as Chris Taylor, a soldier who volunteers to fight in the war as a way to escape the tedium of his upper-middle class existance, only to find that it may have been the biggest mistake of his life. As the film unfolds, Taylor is dragged unwillingly into a battle of wills between two very different men, the compassionate Sgt. Elias(willem Dafoe), and the battle scarred and merciless Sgt. Barnes(Tom Berenger). Lines are drawn within the platoon, and soon, the men find that they are not only fighting the Viet Cong, but themselves as well.
Seeing Platoon for the first time is an overwhelming experience. It is full of disturbing, casual violence, a forboding sense of death hangs thick in the air, and Stone offers us no comforting "heroics" to put the audience at ease. In the world of the film there is no right or wrong, no good or evil, there exists only shades of grey. Elias is portrayed as a kind man at first, but he is also a drug addict, which is careless and dangerous while in a war zone. Barnes is portrayed as a brutal killer, but as the film goes along, you get a sense that here is a formerly decent man who was willing to become a monster to survive. Taylor, who could be considered the film's hero, also does a lot of things that are shocking in their cruelty, even as he is conflicted about them. Most of the characters exist in this moral grey area, neither being bad or good, but just being frightened human beings pushed to the absolute limits of endurance.
The cast is uniformly excellent, with Sheen standing as the film's (admittedly shakey) moral center, and some stellar performances by Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. Also of note is a very young Johnny depp in a blink and you'll miss him translator, and a truly frightening performance from Kevin Dillon as the amoral and sociopathic Bunny.
Stone directs the film with a visual poetry which contrasts with the raw language and brutal acts portrayed onscreen. Vietnam itself is at once beautiful and dangerous, the view of the sky is usually blocked by the thick jungle foliage. This clausterphobic cinematography is effective in creating a sense of being trapped and hopeless in a strange place.
In the end, Platoon emerges as a deeply moving film about the loss of innocence, the struggle to retain some humanity in the most extreme circumstances, and how far people are willing to go to survive. Perhaps todays war films surpass it for onscreen carnage, but none come close to Oliver Stone's deeply personal and harrowing opus.
Platoon(1986, directed by Oliver Stone)
(Five out of Five stars)
There have been countless war movies over the decades, especially in current years, and while many of them are very good, none of them reach the the level of brutal emotional honesty of Oliver Stone's best film, Platoon.
Based upon Vietnam veteran Stone's personal experiences, it stars Charlie Sheen in one of his first film roles as Chris Taylor, a soldier who volunteers to fight in the war as a way to escape the tedium of his upper-middle class existance, only to find that it may have been the biggest mistake of his life. As the film unfolds, Taylor is dragged unwillingly into a battle of wills between two very different men, the compassionate Sgt. Elias(willem Dafoe), and the battle scarred and merciless Sgt. Barnes(Tom Berenger). Lines are drawn within the platoon, and soon, the men find that they are not only fighting the Viet Cong, but themselves as well.
Seeing Platoon for the first time is an overwhelming experience. It is full of disturbing, casual violence, a forboding sense of death hangs thick in the air, and Stone offers us no comforting "heroics" to put the audience at ease. In the world of the film there is no right or wrong, no good or evil, there exists only shades of grey. Elias is portrayed as a kind man at first, but he is also a drug addict, which is careless and dangerous while in a war zone. Barnes is portrayed as a brutal killer, but as the film goes along, you get a sense that here is a formerly decent man who was willing to become a monster to survive. Taylor, who could be considered the film's hero, also does a lot of things that are shocking in their cruelty, even as he is conflicted about them. Most of the characters exist in this moral grey area, neither being bad or good, but just being frightened human beings pushed to the absolute limits of endurance.
The cast is uniformly excellent, with Sheen standing as the film's (admittedly shakey) moral center, and some stellar performances by Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. Also of note is a very young Johnny depp in a blink and you'll miss him translator, and a truly frightening performance from Kevin Dillon as the amoral and sociopathic Bunny.
Stone directs the film with a visual poetry which contrasts with the raw language and brutal acts portrayed onscreen. Vietnam itself is at once beautiful and dangerous, the view of the sky is usually blocked by the thick jungle foliage. This clausterphobic cinematography is effective in creating a sense of being trapped and hopeless in a strange place.
In the end, Platoon emerges as a deeply moving film about the loss of innocence, the struggle to retain some humanity in the most extreme circumstances, and how far people are willing to go to survive. Perhaps todays war films surpass it for onscreen carnage, but none come close to Oliver Stone's deeply personal and harrowing opus.