 Winner of four Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Directing, this harrowingly realistic war film (based on director Oliver Stone's firsthand experience) arrives on Blu-ray for the first time in this 25th Anniversary Edition - loaded with explosive extras that take you to the front lines of moviemaking. Starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen, Platoon is a powerful, riveting and starkly brutal tale of an American soldier's descent into the chaos and horror of the Vietnam War. 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. Written by Jeremy Thomson Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Martin Liebman on May 25, 2011 -- Those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning in this life. Thus is the summation of Platoon, a picture of great craftsmanship yes but a far more important film in terms of its messages not as they necessarily oppose the act of war but instead identify and accentuate the goodness that must come from it, lest man once again fall into the pit of despair, having failed to learn his lessons from past actions only to once again defile himself in the senseless bloodshed and again come to reflect on both its follies and how it may in the future be avoided for the first and, perhaps, only time. War is a vicious cycle that's proven an unavoidable truth of life since time began, and for every man who falls, another inevitably concludes that from the ashes must rise a new life, a new purpose, a new means of looking at the world and finding whatever it may be that will rebuild society not in the image of what it was, but what it must become. History has taught that worldly divisions, however, are far too great to be conquered by idealism and dialogue alone, man eventually succumbing to the clashing of swords in hopes that a dominant force of will may artificially progress an opponent towards those fundamental ideals which alter from man to man, from land to land. War has never absolutely succeed in its purpose -- and it does serve a purpose -- of positively brining about harmony through the domination of evil; war is instead an ever-evolving beast, something that continues to fester and bring consequences to the world even when the guns have silenced and the deaths have ceased. What follows are those very same grand ideals -- that necessary and honest notion that "those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning in this life" -- that come from war but are never the result of war, far too often existing only as words but not actions. War is hell, indeed, and Director Oliver Stone's Platoon unflinchingly journeys there in hopes that by somehow artificially recreating it it may never again be made. Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen, Wall Street) is a fresh-from-college Army volunteer who's as green as his fatigues and the Vietnamese jungle, a boy who's completely unprepared for the experiences that are about to redefine his life. In the 'Nam, the men count their days remaining "in-country," hoping and praying to survie another day of their mandatory year of service. One year, one long, bloody year is all it takes to jeopardize a life both on the field of battle and within one's own being. Taylor finds himself in the midst of a growing rift within his platoon; as the death toll mounts from nighttime ambushes and booby-traps, the men begin to emotionally fall to pieces and feed off their negativity, which comes to a head when the platoon exacts revenge on a village suspected to be a Viet Cong stronghold. Tensions erupt into a fistfight between Staff Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger, Major League) and Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe, Flight of the Intruder), the latter of whom admonishes Barnes's overtly aggressive and violent behavior towards the villagers. Chris, himself emotionally distraught, experiences both extremes in mere moments, at first torturing a Vietnamese civilian and, seeing the error of his ways, breaking up a gang rape on a young villager. With the men now clearly divided, it's only a question as to whether the enemy or the schism between the men will be the platoon's undoing. Platoon represents the very essence of purposefully haunting cinema; Oliver Stone's (World Trade Center) film is one of a great juxtaposition, on one hand representing admirable cinematic craftsmanship and storytelling prowess the likes of which only select films achieve, and on the other a film that is sometimes impossible to watch for its frighteningly intense and emotionally draining account of the Vietnam War as it is waged both on the battlefields and within the very souls of men. Platoon is not a movie made with entertainment in mind; certainly it may be seen as such by more naive audiences who may lack the life experiences to truly appreciate the purpose behind Stone's work (read: many children and young adults), but most mature viewers will find in the film a transformative, or at the very least enlightening, narrative that desperately searches for what shred of good there may be in war, amidst what is not only chaos of the physical sort but the destruction of the very essence of man. In Platoon, Stone analyzes three critical elements: the destruction of the physical body, the corruption of the mind, and the disappearance of the soul (or humanity), all a result of the cumulative effects of war. So often it is only the first that is emphasized by those who criticize war, but it is truly those greater losses that occur on the emotional and metaphysical levels that leave the scars that truly never heal. Indeed, as the tagline for Platoon reads, "the first casualty of war is innocence." That is the essence of the film, but from the destruction of innocence and the necessary maturation that comes from it must yield that desire to "to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and meaning in this life." Platoon also serves as a microcosm for the division of men and the resultant war as evidenced by the primary plot, which is the schism that grows between the men in the platoon; though the men may have a common enemy against whom most of the physical action takes place, it's the battle for their minds, hearts, souls, and allegiances that truly shape the film. In Platoon, the men divide into two opposing factions where the social structure of war is not defined by those elements that tend divide outside the battlefield -- race, religion, politics, and the like -- but they instead divide along what may appear to be more arbitrary lines, lines that are at first blurred but come into focus as morality is pushed aside, yielding the resultant corruption of the mind and soul through the process of war. The battle-scared Barnes leads the camp that has become desensitized from humanity. Not all of his followers have yet to fully descend into the absolute madness of their leader, but they have allowed the physical casualties of war to at least begin the process of destroying their humanity as they tumble down the slippery slope into Barnes's hell. On the other side is Elias, a man who has survived several tours not only in the physical sense, but in the emotional and spiritual realm as well. He still holds morality in the highest regard, and the dangers and deaths that have come to define his environment have yet to corrupt him as they have Barnes. Taylor finds himself caught in a figurative tug-of-war between the men as they battle for possession of his soul, as he states. Taylor's emotional imbalance comes to a head in the village when his emotions overwhelm him and negativity embraces him; he's on the precipice of self-destruction as he taunts a young one-legged, facially-deformed man, but his cathartic moment comes when the gung-ho, war-crazed, humanity-abandoned Bunny (Kevin Dillon) slaughters the man in cold blood. Taylor, in that moment, immediately entrenches himself firmly in the Elias camp, but more importantly, he rescues his soul from the brink of personal devastation. This is the most critical scene in Platoon; it encapsulates the true battle for the heart and soul of every combatant and while it may have been an isolated, inconsequential event in the greater scheme of the war-at-large, it forever defines Taylor as a man and ensures that, live or die in the physical, his humanity will remain. Platoon's emotional resonance and significance is greatly accentuated, but not defined, by Oliver Stone's craftsmanship and the work of his cast and crew. Stone, himself a veteran of Vietnam, gives his picture an uncanny sense of authenticity that's not manifested necessarily in the action scenes or costumes, but in the way he directs his men to act, the way he so effortlessly re-creates both the physical and metaphorical battlefields that shaped the war and the men who fought in it. He expertly constructs his characters and the film-at-large to build to a crescendo of emotional unrest, thematic power, and physical challenge, all of which further enhance the picture's primary reason for being. The cast is equally superb. Charlie Sheen's portrayal of Chris is a great strength; he defines the picture's themes through the voiceover reading of letters to his grandmother that demonstrate his progression through the film, beginning by claiming that he "made a big mistake coming here" and ultimately evolving to where he finds in his experiences the positive outlook which challenges himself and those fellow survivors to find meaning in their experiences and to rebuild their world in such a way that may avoid the physical, emotional, and spiritual calamities of war in the future. Sheen handles the physical challenges of the role very well, too, transitioning from a green and confused inexperienced solider to a man with a thousand years worth of experiences accrued in mere months. Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe dazzle as the opposing de facto "father figures" in the film, each representing two extremes as their experiences in the war shape who they have become, Berenger the grizzled, hard, soulless soldier and Dafoe the man who has defied the odds and maintained an internal balance despite his lengthy participation in war. The film is also packed with an amazing array of talent; there's nary a character who isn't played by a name actor, including Forest Whitaker, Keith David, John C. McGinley, Francesco Quinn, Kevin Dillon, and Johnny Depp. The picture is accentuated by a beautiful rendition of Adagio for Strings, a wonderfully melancholic, in a way almost angelic, piece, that hangs over the picture and resonates powerfully as an audible theme for the challenges of war and the need to retain morality, even if it comes at the expense of innocence. Platoon is an extraordinary film and perhaps the most important of all War pictures. It gets to the very essence of war, which is the toll it takes on man not in the physical, but in the emotional and spiritual senses. Oliver Stone's greatest cinematic accomplishment, Platoon is an infallible film, constructed with great care for its thematic core but supported by precision craftsmanship and faultless acting that altogether elevate it to heights it shares with only the finest of motion pictures, War or otherwise. MGM's Blu-ray release of Platoon features decent video, shaky audio, and a wonderfully enthralling array of extra content. It's debatable whether the release could have been better, but it would seem that this is probably close to the pinnacle of quality of how Platoon is going to look and sound for home viewing. Highly recommended. Cast Notes: 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). IMDb Rating (07/25/14): 8.2/10 from 226,127 users Top 250: #167 IMDb Rating (06/01/11): 8.2/10 from 123,015 users Top 250: #141 IMDb Rating (10/15/07): 8.1/10 from 64,704 users Top 250: #141 IMDb Rating (06/03/01): 7.9/10 from 11,775 users Top 250: #161
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