We lost about 25 dead and 175 wounded; we killed about 500 of them. WebPlatoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone, starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Keith David, Kevin Dillon, John C. McGinley, Forest Whitaker, and Johnny Depp. Platoon was released in the United States on December 19, 1986 and in the Philippines[24] and the United Kingdom in March 1987, with its release in the latter receiving an above 15 rating for strong language, scenes of violence, and soft drug use. Furthermore, the movie was shot chronologically. There were 2.7 million stories in the naked jungle. An incoherent parable about male bonding through Russian roulette. Though the platoon is officially under the command of the young and inexperienced Lieutenant Wolfe, the soldiers instead defer to two of his older and more experienced subordinates: the cynical Staff Sergeant Barnes, and the more idealistic Sergeant Elias. On a second patrol the platoon enters a village that might be My Lai; anger goads Chris to spit bullets at the feet of a petrified Vietnamese, and before the day is over the groups leader, Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), has seen to the slaughtering of villagers before the entire place is torched. He added, We had made all of these deals with the military. Former Senator Gary Hart, aware of the electorates fondness for presidential candidates with movie credentials, campaigns for the film by urging that every teenager in America should see Platoon., Now ask a man whos been there: David Halberstam, who covered the war for the New York Times and, in The Best and the Brightest, documented two Administrations slides into the Big Muddy. A soldier is killed, and Taylor is wounded. Theyd cut my hair, and Id be a number. We killed a lot of innocents., The battle at the end of the film was based on a New Years Day skirmish less than a mile from the Cambodian border. Many of our articles are reserved for subscribers only. By the time Sheen auditioned again a few years later, he had grown into the role. For a nation whose war history had read like a John Wayne war movie where good guys finish first by being tough and playing fair the polarization was soul-souring. He wrote eleven scripts in his spare time, directed a low-budget Canadian thriller called Seizure, and in 1975 got an agent through the graces of Screenwriter Robert Bolt. Welcome back to the war that, just 20 years ago, turned America schizophrenic. In its early limited opening, Platoon is already a prestige hit, and the film shows signs of becoming a blockbuster as it opens across the country over the next three weeks. Possibly I was saved for a reason. [25] I felt Viet Nam was omitted from history books. The prop wash from a landing helicopter blows the tarpaulins off three bodies, their shrouds torn off, their makeshift graves defiled. Working with Stone was like being caught in a Cuisinart with a madman, James Woods opines. He becomes a murderer. A good man, and a murderer? WebPlatoon's demolition expert. Just as Barnes is about to kill Taylor, both men are knocked unconscious by an air strike. The movie crowds you; it doesn't leave you room for an honest emotion. All Rights Reserved. I would have joined the Black Panthers if theyd asked me. In Saigon, the G.I.s from the 1st Infantry Division were just arriving. Because Barnes deserved killing. Or has he emulated his enemy? WebFind many great new & used options and get the best deals for Platoon (1986) VHS with Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe at the best online prices at eBay! More than any other film, Platoon gives the sense all five senses of fighting in Viet Nam. For that battle our platoon was on the inner perimeter, but two weeks later we went back into the same area and got hit by an ambush, like the one that gets Elias. Unsurprisingly, the government didnt care for the films unflattering portrayal of the Viet Cong, and wouldnt let it play there.But in March 1988, the Vietnam News Agency reported that tens of thousands of people were watching it on video in Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), without noting how the film had been obtained. Willem Dafoe generally nails it when it comes to playing weirdos, creeps, and psychopaths. And his passion isnt bogus he doesnt play Imagine at the end of the film to break peoples hearts. Brian De Palma, who filmed Scarface from a Stone script, sees him achieving a volcanic maturity in Platoon: He has now channeled his feeling and energy into a cohesive dramatic work. One gets killed, the other lives. WebGuy Ritchie's The Covenant (or simply The Covenant) is a 2023 American action thriller film co-written, produced and directed by Guy Ritchie.The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim.Its plot follows a former U.S. Army special operations sergeant and Afghanistan War veteran, John Kinley, who returns to the country to rescue the interpreter who once The man denies that the villagers aid the North Vietnamese armed forces. It depicts the experiences of a group of young British soldiers in the 48 hours leading up to the Battle of the Somme in 1916. The war was still too fresh in peoples minds; it would be another few years before films like Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter addressed it. My first day in Viet Nam, Stone says, I realized, like Chris in Platoon, that Id made a terrible mistake. Now Stone, who earned a Bronze Star and a MASH units worth of physical and emotional wounds in the jungles of Viet Nam, has transformed his war experience the bad dream he lived through for 15 months in 1967-68 into a film called Platoon. And life is a matter of luck. He had his valet; his closet was immaculate. They were just tired and useless, Dafoe said. Platoon pushes the metaphor further, thousands of miles away from the world, into the combat zones of Nam. And when the change came, we had to make new deals with the new military. "[23], However, black journalist Wallace Terry, who spent a two-year tour in Vietnam, and wrote the 1967 Time cover story entitled The Negro in Vietnam, criticized the film for its depiction of African-American soldiers in Vietnam. The enraged soldiers approach a nearby village and begin ruthlessly rounding up residents. They were even given lessons on many topics such as basic jungle warfare, combat, weapon handling, target practice, cooking, radio communication, and first aid. The typical film, though, does not provoke a political free-for-all. Once again, this was a project that Stone had struggled to secure financing for, but Daly loved the script and was prepared to finance both Salvador and Platoon. Suddenly we were a nation split between left and right, black and white, hip and square, mothers and fathers, parents and children. During a subsequent patrol, three men are killed by booby traps and unseen assailants. The headquarters of the Philippines Air Force, Colonel Jesus Villamor Air Base, also appears on the list of filming locations. [35] In his New York Times review, Vincent Canby described Platoon as "possibly the best work of any kind about the Vietnam War since Michael Herr's vigorous and hallucinatory book Dispatches. The news of their divorce came as a total shock, Stone recalls. One suspects that the old troublemaker will find new trouble spots in the political landscape; the soapbox spieler will continue his spellbinding harangues. Taylor and the other wounded members of the platoon are evacuated, and, in a voiceover, Taylor reflects on what he learned from his experiences. The important thing was to make a living. Jacqueline Stone was just the opposite: inexhaustibly sociable, the original bete de fete. Their bodies were scraped up by bulldozers, just like in the movie. See details Payments: Special financing available. Oleg Palchyk. I woke up in Asia, he says, and it became an orphan home for me. And a new kind of war demanded a new look at the war-movie genre. But for the moment, Oliver Stone has found for himself the one plot twist he would never have put in Platoon: a happy ending to his Viet Nam nightmare. I finished Hill and spent a year at Yale, but I saw myself as a product an East Coast socioeconomic product and I wanted to break out of the mold. It was cool too, like studying to be an astronaut. This was the gallivanting political melodrama Salvador. But Platoon is a new statement about Viet Nam veterans. The script was set to music from The Doors; Stone sent the script to Jim Morrison in the hope he would play the lead. He will find death soon enough: four patrols in the film, four wrenching revelations. A year later, as the tall ships clogged New York harbor, Stone sat down and wrote Platoon. Platoons narration, in the form of Chris letters to his grandmother, is often as stilted and redundant as silent-movie title cards. [41] MGM released the 20th anniversary DVD through Sony Pictures Home Entertainment in 2006 while 20th Century Fox released the Blu-ray version on May 25, 2011. Two further projects concerning the war, Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth, completed something like a trilogy. Its usually around day two or day three [the actors] realize playtime is over and that this guy is serious, he recalled., Though hed been lauded as a screenwriter for Midnight Express and Scarface, Stones previous directorial effortsThe Hand (1981) and Salvador (1986, 10 months before Platoon)had been flops. Want access to more subscriber-only content, click here to subscribe. Year of the Dragon was directed by Stone's friend Michael Cimino, who had also helmed The Deer Hunter. The shooting started in February of 1986 and lasted for 54 days. This film has a very strong adult content and is not for everyone in the family, however I will say that it will always be a part of my history. WebStone verarbeitete in dem Film eigene Erlebnisse seiner Zeit in Vietnam. In 2019, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[4][5][6]. [23] Music used in the film includes Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane, and "Okie from Muskogee" by Merle Haggard (which is an anachronism, as the film is set in 1967 but Haggard's song was not released until 1969). Which is why we clicked. It wasn't going to kill people, but you felt comfortable with it. It is a huge black slab of remembrance, chiseled in sorrow and anger the first Viet Nam Memorial movie. He believes Costner turned down the role "because his brother had been in Vietnam." It was released again on VHS in 1999 by Polygram Filmed Entertainment (who briefly held the rights to the film through its purchase of the Epic library). Originally, The film score was by George Delerue. Of course, Platoon need not be every possible Viet Nam film to be the best one so far. He will do anything to achieve his objective: lead a suicide mission or send his rival on one; murder a village woman in cold blood or taunt his men toward murdering him. Already on edge, the platoon is further angered when they discover an enemy supply cache in a nearby village. But Platoon is historically and politically accurate. Platoon the picture is now Platoon the phenomenon. (Dye said: They had been making zillions of dollars making war films for decades, and here was some clown coming in to tell them they had a better mousetrap? He gives them instructions and goes on his own to another position. AFI's 100 Years100 Movies (10th Anniversary Edition), "National Film Registry Adds 'Purple Rain', 'Clerks', 'Gaslight' & More; 'Boys Don't Cry' One Of Record 7 Pics From Female Helmers", "Complete National Film Registry Listing", "Denzel Washington regrets passing up 'Seven' and 'Michael Clayton', "How Oliver Stone's Experiences in Vietnam Influenced Platoon", "Charlie Sheen on making Platoon: 'We screamed for the medic! A dream had startled him awake. While the platoon is extracting via helicopter, they see a mortally wounded Elias emerge from the treeline being chased by NVA soldiers, who eventually kill him. All senses must be alert when your life is at stake, and Oliver Stone is an artist-showman who can make movies seem a matter of life and death. Joes, big brothers to the kids whose village they have just destroyed and the soldier who bashed a mans head takes a tourist snapshot of the holocaust. Before, we were either objects of pity or objects that had to be defused to keep us at a distance. Remember what war is. Seeing that Taylor will not help, Barnes contemptuously tells Taylor to kill him, with which he complies. I thought it was the best thing since Rimbaud. From the start, I had the contradiction in me: my mothers outgoing, optimistic, French side and the dark, pessimistic, Jewish side of my father.. [8] In December 2022, Ritchie revealed that the title had been changed from The Interpreter to The Covenant. But John Wheeler, 42, a veteran who is president of the Center for the Study of the Viet Nam Generation in Washington and chairman of the Viet Nam Veterans Memorial Fund, argues that there were drug cultures; there were green lieutenants. This film has a very strong adult content and is not for everyone in the family, however I will say that it will always be a part of my history. They spent two weeks as soldiers in the Philippine jungle, digging holes to live in, eating from ration cans, carrying real weight, and staying in character. . . And after that, studios had another excuse not to make Platoon: why bother, when Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter had already covered it? Soon long lines were forming outside the movies Times Square flagship at lunchtime, on weekdays, in the hawk bite of a January wind and after midnight in early- to-bed Hollywood. I remember the helicopters were pretty dangerous because they werent maintained well. The production, which cost $6.5 million, made use of Vietnamese refugees who were living in the area. However, it is imperative to note that the movie was shot at a time when the Philippines was experiencing the People Power Revolution. The book was now 1,400 pages. Although the story is based in Vietnam, filmmakers actually captured the gritty war scenes in the Philippines. In the chaos, Taylor and Barnes encounter each other, and Barnes moves to kill Taylor moments before both are knocked back by ordnance dropped from a plane. I hated America. The Czechoslovakia scenes were filmed at the Jim Beam-owned Chapeze Distillery in Clermont, Kentucky. In the movie theaters, this illegal shooting usually gets a big hand. While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. So dirt of the proper hue was trucked in for authenticitys sake. There was just one discrepancy: the Philippines lacked the red soil that Stone remembered from his days in Nam. Elias later tells Captain Harris (Dale Dye) that he wants to file a report against Barnes for shooting the village chiefs wife, and Harris tells Barnes that he will be court-martialed if there is evidence that he committed an illegal shooting. Platoon: Directed by Oliver Stone. Back in 1976, when Stone was trying to get his screenplay produced, he almost found a taker in Sidney Lumet (Dog Day Afternoon, Network), who was going to cast Al Pacino in the Charlie Sheen role., A much-decorated retired Marine named Dale Dye, who loved war movies but was disappointed by their failure to convey the mental and emotional realities of combat, offered Stone his services as an advisor. I fell in with the progressives a Yale boy who heard soul music and smoked dope for the first time in his life., Most of Platoons starkest events come from Stones backpack of Viet Nam memories. Oliver Stone was an infantryman for 14 months in 1967 and 1968, and he was determined to portray the experience accurately in what would be the first Vietnam film made by a Vietnam veteran. Make a movie about it., It would take Stone almost a decade, until 1976, before he could write the script of Platoon, and another decade to put it on the screen. They were out to survive this bummer with some integrity and a sense of humor. [7], James Woods, who had starred in Stone's film Salvador, was offered a part in Platoon. It wasnt very romantic. Each of the three combat units he served in was divided into antagonistic groups, as in the film: On one side were the lifers, the juicers ((heavy drinkers)) and the moron white element. By 1976, that draft morphed into what he was then calling The Platoon. The ensuing fire fight was very messy. Magazines, Digital Back at base, Taylor attempts to talk his group into fragging Barnes in retaliation when Barnes, having overheard them, enters the room and mocks them.

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