Friday, April 18, 2008
Platoon - The final Scene
Platoon is probably my all time favorite war movie. I know it doesn't get as much attention as Saving Private Ryan or Apocalypse Now, but I always find it the most engaging.
I've found Oliver Stone's films to be of the hit and miss variety. He's made masterpieces (JFK, Born on the Fourth of July) and he's made some truly awful films (U-Turn, Alexander). But Platoon is his finest work.
What makes Platoon so unique, is that it deals with good and evil between the same side. The platoon is separated into two camps. One led by Elias (Willem Dafoe) who believes in showing empathy and questions the morality of war and the other camp led by Barnes (Tom Berenger) who is a sociopath and treats all Vietnamese people as the enemy.
As Stone was a Vietnam vet, you could imagine how personal the film was to him and it really shows. The actual war scenes are purposely confusing. Its hard to really tell who's shooting at whom. But it really gives you a sense of the discombobulation that soldiers must feel.
This is not a war movie about good guys vs bad guys. There is no rooting involved. Stone just paints a brilliant picture of what war does, and the viewer can take it or leave it.
The scene above leaves an undeniably haunting image in your mind before you start to see the credits. By the time you get to this scene, you are completely emotionally drained, and seeing the piles of dead bodies being put into a large hole will leave even the most pro-war people asking questions.
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1 comment:
Platoon is an incredibly corny and manipulative film.The acting from everyone involved is laughably bad,and the dialouge makes their performances even worse.Stone is trying to be serious,but he makes every character a cliche,you CAN'T take it seriously.The ''good''guys are all potsmokers and all the ''bad''guys are drinkers.And the plot is a dead gives itself away,almost from the beginning.(You knew sheen was going to have this tired and played out mano a mano with berenger)All of the black characters are cowards(abandoning their men,running into trees,tripping over booby traps,tricking their way on to choppers outta there,stabbing themselves)The ridiculous scenes are endless(dafoe charging like han solo in star wars,there its supposed to be funny,here you just roll your eyes.Dafoe's death is supposed to be moving,instead it just moves you to laughter.Sheen with one clip of ammo,is able to survive a handful of the enemy,while wearing a ''rambo'' bandanna.lolYou wanna see great vietnam war films,try the original apocalypse now, and the best full metal jacket.Far more original,better stories,better acting,dialouge.Platoon is funnier than tropic thunder,but the sad thing is,stone was trying to serious.
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