One of the first things I noticed about Platoon was that it had young Johnny Depp in it. One of the second things I noticed about Platoon was that it was kind of over-the-top ridiculous. Oliver Stone’s movie was intended to show off the ambiguity of guerilla warfare and the brutality that accompanied any modern conflict. He did accomplish this, as there are a few scenes where US Marines make judgement calls that shocked me. However, some of the things the Marines do are frankly ridiculous, and the movie is far too over the top to accurately portray what warfare is like. If you want a good action movie, Platoon will definitely deliver. However, if you want an accurate portrayal of the Vietnam War, you should probably look elsewhere.
Charlie Sheen plays the main character, who gives up his university education to enlist in the Marines, believing that he is joining a noble cause. Predictably, he realizes that he was deceived, and his time in Vietnam is, to put it mildly, a living hell. Throughout the movie, he slowly loses his grip on reality and his sanity, and by the end of the movie, he is a wreck of a human being, and will never be able to live the same way again.
Like I said, the movie succeeds as an action movie and a portrayal of the psyche of a normal guy thrown into war. It fails as an accurate portrayal of what war really is like. As long as you go into the movie with the right mindset, you’ll enjoy yourself. If you think it will show you what war is really like, however, you will be sorely disappointed.
Score: 3/5 (A 3 is a movie that is very deserving of it’s place on the AFI top 100 list. It kept me interested through the entire thing, and I thought it was a quality film. However, I probably wouldn’t watch it more than once, for one or more reasons (below-par acting/plot/dialogue, story being too simplistic or too difficult, movie being past it’s prime, etc.) That said, I recommend you go see it at least once.)
