Platoon ***** (1986, Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe) – Classic Movie Review 2074

Writer-director Oliver Stone’s 1986 Oscar-winner for Best Picture and Best Director focuses on the trials and tribulations of American infantrymen in 60s Vietnam and boasts the solid, traditional movie-making virtues of an engrossing story, muscular performances and an epic production. Platoon is notable as the first Hollywood film to be written and directed by a veteran of the Vietnam War. Stone wrote the story based on his experiences as a US infantryman in Vietnam to counter the fantasy vision of the war portrayed in John Wayne’s grotesquely flag-waving The Green Berets.

The young Charlie Sheen scores a huge impact as the rookie recruit through whose eyes we see the semi-autobiographical story. And the film profits from its canny casting of Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe against type, both turning in among their best work as a result, with Berenger as the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin.

The plotline focuses on Sheen’s character Chris Taylor, a young, naive American who quits college and volunteers for combat in 1967 in Vietnam, where he finds he is non-essential and faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war, battling both the enemy and the platoon. An illegal killing occurs during a village raid and Chris heads towards psychological meltdown, struggling for survival.

With the expected overdose of realism, violence and gore, this is a powerful, gut-wrenching, often exhilarating movie that became a huge box-office hit. Even so, it doesn’t outdo Stone’s earlier financial flop Salvador for quality. Also in the cast are Forest Whitaker, Francesco Quinn, John C McGinley, Richard Edson, Kevin Dillon, Reggie Johnson, Keith David and Johnny Depp.

It also won Oscars for Best Film Editing (Claire Simpson) and Best Sound (John K Wilkinson, Richard Rogers, Charles Grenzbach, Simon Kayes).

Stone has a cameo as the battalion commander of 3/22 Infantry in the final battle, based on the real-life New Year’s Day Battle of 1968 that he took part in while in Vietnam. Stone won a second Best Picture Oscar for the next in his Vietnam trilogy, Born on the Fourth of July (1989), but failed to repeat the success with Heaven and Earth (1993).

Platoon was filmed on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, starting in February 1986. James Woods, star of Stone’s previous film Salvador, was offered a part in Platoon but  turned it down, saying he couldn’t face going into another jungle with Stone.

It cost a low $6million and, spurred by the Oscar success, earned $138.5million in North America alone.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2074

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