Platoon (1986)

A young soldier in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.

Director:

Oliver Stone

Writer:

Oliver Stone

Stars:

Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe

Top Rated Movies #210 | Won 4 Oscars. Another 20 wins & 14 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Keith David	...	King
Forest Whitaker	...	Big Harold
Francesco Quinn	...	Rhah
Kevin Dillon	...	Bunny
John C. McGinley	...	Sgt. O'Neill
Reggie Johnson	...	Junior
Mark Moses	...	Lt. Wolfe
Corey Glover	...	Francis
Johnny Depp	...	Lerner
Chris Pedersen	...	Crawford
Bob Orwig	...	Gardner
Corkey Ford	...	Manny
David Neidorf	...	Tex
Tom Berenger	...	Sgt. Barnes
Willem Dafoe	...	Sgt. Elias

Storyline

Chris Taylor is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two non-commissioned officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin. A line is drawn between the two NCOs and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon.

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Plot Keywords:

vietnam war | gore | combat fatigue | gunfire | automatic weapon | 

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Taglines:

The first casualty of war is innocence.

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Genres:

Drama | War

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Certificate:

R

Did You Know?

Trivia

The part of Sergeant Barnes was originally offered to Kevin Costner. He turned it down because he didn't want to disrespect his brother, who was a Vietnam veteran. Oliver Stone would later cast him in JFK (1991).

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Goofs

Early in the movie we are informed it is September 1967 (somewhere near the Cambodian Border). Not much later, after Chris returns from his first injury, he is cleaning out the latrines with King and Crawford. King has 39 days left on his tour (unknown end date) and Crawford 92 days (end date April 17 1968). Taylor has 332 days left so he has been there for a little over a month. This means the current date must be somewhere toward the end of October 1967, meaning King's last day should be mid December 1967. And Crawford has a whole lot more than 92 days left. Later on, the bunker and village scene occurs on New Year's Day 1968 (It's important that it occurred at the start of 1968 as this is likely a metaphor for the changing US view of the war both on the home front and at the strategic level. This is the time the platoon clearly begins to disintegrate, and Barnes takes control while the platoon's factions become far more open). In the prelude to the final scene in the movie which occurs during or later than Jan 1968, King exclaims "I'm too short for this s**t" but he gets a lifeline when his home orders come in. Despite being months overdue he is happy when he thinks they have made a mistake in his favour, when in reality he should have been long gone by this point.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Pvt. Gardner: [seeing body bags] Oh, man. Is that what I think it is?
Sergeant: All right, you cheese-dicks, welcome to the Nam. Follow me!

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Alternate Versions

TV version has much of its dialogue redubbed and shots refilmed, replacing such lines as "He thinks he's Jesus F---in' Christ!" with "He thinks he's George Freakin' Washington!"

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Connections

Referenced in HBO First Look: Full Contact: The Making of 'Any Given Sunday' (1999)

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Soundtracks

WHITE RABBIT
Composed by Grace Slick
Performed by Jefferson Airplane
Published by Irving Music
Courtesy of RCA Records

User Reviews

Platoon focuses on the moral decay of the soldiers in the most unpopular war in modern American history

Many great war films of the Vietnam conflict are centered around these themes of blurred morality and the uselessness of war, and Oliver Stone's Platoon is among the most well known. Stone, who wrote and directed the film and also served as an infantryman in Vietnam, first rose to fame for his war films that dramatized the infamous Cold War conflict. The main premise of his magnum opus are the inner conflicts within US forces deployed to southeast Asia, rather than the actual physical conflicts between them and the Communist-allied Vietnamese forces. More broadly, Platoon analyzes the "duality of man" concept that has been studied in numerous other works, from fellow Vietnam War films like Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979), all the way back to the latter's source material and inspiration in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

Platoon focuses on the moral decay of soldiers in American units, and how this contributes to their inability to fight their Vietnamese enemies. Charlie Sheen sums up this theme with his on-the-nose voiceover, "We did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves... and the enemy was in us."

Vietnam War-movies tend to be even harder to watch than most war flicks, as the lines between the "heroes" and "villains" are blurred more than in any other dramatized period of warfare in recent human history. In wars like World War II, which are widely known for being as black and white as military conflicts have become, the contrasting features between the heroic forces we are meant to root for and their opposing enemy platoons are well defined. That is almost never the case with the United States-North Vietnamese/Vietcong conflict in Vietnam during the overarching Cold War.

That is not to say that most wars throughout human history have not been many shades of grey, with the winners and losers not always corresponding with the righteous and evil. But because of the guerrilla nature and infamous legacy of the Vietnam War itself - namely, the immense public protest against American involvement - the Vietnam War remains by far the most unpopular war in modern American history. With that said, most of the film is fantastic, from the aforementioned narrative to the grim lightning of the southeast Asian jungles that emphasize the film's tone, to the poignant, melancholic score.

Details

Official Sites:

MGM [United States] Official site

Country:

USA UK

Language:

English Vietnamese

Release Date:

6 February 1987 (USA)

Also Known As:

The Platoon

Filming Locations:

Luzon, Philippines

Box Office

Budget:

$6,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$241,080, 21 December 1986

Gross USA:

$138,530,565

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$138,545,632

Company Credits

Production Co:

Hemdale, Cinema '84, Cinema 86

Technical Specs

Runtime:

120 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Stereo

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1