Platoon
(1986)

Rated: R
Runtime: 2 Hours

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Reviewer: Erik
Grade: A+

I'm clueless as to how to review a movie like this. A movie like "Platoon" needs to be experienced, as words often don't come close to describing what will take place before your eyes.

Sure it's a war movie, and it's got plenty of battle scenes, but Stone succeeds in showing war as complete and utter chaos, both in battle and out. Battle scenes, for instance, don't show clear-cut lines, nor can you easily decipher "your" side and "theirs". Any bullet fired can take out a friend or foe, especially in the movie's last battle scene, set close to the Cambodian border.

But the movie works better on an emotional level. The Chris Taylor who walks off the plane at the beginning of the movie isn't the same one who leaves for the hospital at the end. In between, he'll deal with the obligatory fights, the boring treks for miles on end, ants, snakes, booby traps and a crucial freezing of the muscles when he should be raising his rifle.

All that takes a back seat, however, to the emotional turmoil he goes through. He, as well as the other grunts, have a choice: You can either be a peacekeeper like the Elias character, who still has a reasonably sound take on the war, and would rather kill people only if he were sure they were the enemy, or he could be like the Barnes character, a scarred veteran who's willing to kill innocent people if it means the risk of losing his life is lessened.

Chris is somewhere in the middle. He wants to be like Elias, but he breaks down when he realizes he's capable of the kind of horror that Barnes thrives on. And, in the end, he commits a brutal act out of revenge that we agree with, but at the same time shows us how the war has taken its toll on his soul.

Along the way there are powerful images: A scene that could have turned into My Lai but barely stays in control, a friend being chased down and killed by the North Vietnamese, the overhead shot of the final battle scene, and many more.

And the movie is helped out by an incredibly moving score and a couple of dazzling performances, by Dafoe and Berenger.

Movies like these make you weak in the stomach. There is plenty in this movie that will not sit well with the viewer. But movies like these are important, and "Platoon" shows the age-old cliche that war is hell.

And often, the pain the physical body goes through doesn't amount to anything compared to the pain in your soul.