Somebody once wrote: “Hell is the impossibility of reason.” That’s what this place feels like. Hell.
Why it’s a left-wing film
Writer/director Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winner (picture, director, editing, sound) is another Cambodian Holocaust denier, a film that again offers no context surrounding the very real consequences that occurred when the Oliver Stones of our world won the day and we abandoned our allies in Cambodia to the Khmer Rouge and those in South Vietnam to communist re-education camps.
In what’s obviously a very personal film (like his main character, in 1967, Stone served in the Infantry in Vietnam), the director doesn’t use a single soda straw to dishonestly portray the war, he uses about a half-dozen of them in order to focus only on America’s Worst Hits and spin them into a patch-quilt of propaganda that makes our military look as though it was highly populated with monsters. According to Stone, these were men who participated in or stood by as civilians were executed and beaten to death, whole villages were burned, Vietnamese children were raped, and ears were taken as souvenirs. Furthermore, drug abuse, fratricide, and in-fighting was the norm.
In the film’s final piece of anti-American symbolism, after the climactic battle during the Tet Offensive, the American soldiers coming in to take the place of the dead are seen driving a tank that proudly flies a Nazi flag. And our protagonist, the young Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who volunteered because he didn’t think only poor people should fight America’s wars, has had his eyes opened during this rite of passage and he now sees the war as only a terrible mistake:
I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. The enemy was in us.
Actually, the enemy was a group of murderous totalitarians and because of those who believed in simplistic poetry spun to sound deep and profound, 3 million people died. But who’s counting? After all, the dead are just a bunch of brown people. You know, like the Iraqis.
Nothing happens by accident in feature films, especially a Nazi flag flying on a U.S. tank. Stone’s message that we were the evildoers in Vietnam is a pretty straight-forward one and one he would return to as he completed his “Vietnam Trilogy” with the exceptional “Born on the Fourth of July” and the unexceptional “Heaven & Earth.”
Why it’s a great film
During the same years in which the film is set, 1967-1968, my wife lost her brother to a landmine in Vietnam. Although politically she’s to the right of me and personally loathes Oliver Stone, the character of Chris and the innocence he brings to his first tour of duty, reminds her of her brother and the film is the only one that she feels gives her any sort of idea as to what he went might’ve went through before he was killed — what his life might have been like. This is especially true for the early scenes when Chris is first getting acclimated to life “In Country.” My wife’s feelings, I think, help to explain why those of us who see through Stone’s agenda are still moved and impressed by his overall achievement.
Stone’s own experience does bring a sense of authenticity to both the world in which the film is set and most especially the characters. While the memorable film score does have an operatic quality, the story itself is a fairly straight-forward one with well-crafted characters, none of whom has a personality blown up into mythical proportions. Instead, they’re all very human and accessible and the focus is on the small details like torturous insects and the easygoing conversation of men who become fast friends as they stare into the abyss of their own mortality and share a unique kind of hell.
What is larger than life, however, is what should be and that’s the story’s thematic drive that places Chris, an innocent young man, in the middle of two warring father figures, no less than the Christ figure of Sgt. Elias (Willem DaFoe) and the Beast figure of Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger). Both men are battle-worn veterans, polar opposites, and very attractive figures. Elias offers the salvation of the soul through the dangerous self-sacrifice of fighting a war as humanely as possible. Barnes, on the other hand, offers terrified boys a fighting chance to survive through a take-no-chances brutality. Elias, who’s literally (but derisively) referred to as “Jesus Christ” and a “water walker,” is competent, warm and somehow remains untouched by all the madness that surrounds him. He has his own camp of infantry disciples, a group of laid back hippies who have all the mellow answers. Meanwhile, Barnes is all muscle, anger and bravado; a man who’s been shot seven times and survived. A man who we’re told he can’t be killed.
The epic fight between a literal good and a literal evil for the soul of a young man set within the biased context of Oliver Stone’s version of Vietnam transcends the director’s biases. “Platoon” isn’t about the Vietnam War, it’s about a rite of passage into manhood through a choice for personal salvation. And in the end, the prophecy is proven correct. Chris only killed Barnes’ body, but his spirit lives on in the form of a tank carrying the kind of soldiers would fly the swastika.
On a pure storytelling level, Stone’s pacing is exceptional, the individual battle scenes are all memorably staged, and the tension that builds throughout is perfectly calibrated. Even better are the three central performances, but there’s not a single false note among the many familiar faces in the supporting cast (Johnny Depp, Kevin Dillon, Forest Whitaker, John C. McGinley). A real standout, though, is the great Keith David as King, a world-wise, charismatic grunt with a beautiful singing voice, a way with words (even if he can’t spell), and a personal code that’s hard to nail down, though you know you definitely want him on your side.
“Platoon” is also the film that gave Capt. Dale Dye his start, and with a single line of dialogue about making sure those who commit war crimes are punished, the retired Marine Captain turned technical advisor not only moves the plot and characters to the final breaking point, he reminds us of the unshakable honor that has always guided the real-world men and women who protect this country. He is our Elias to Stone’s talented but damaged Barnes.
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