Gritty. (Platoon (DVD))

Member Name: leeroy

Product:	Platoon (DVD)
Date:	14/04/01 (423 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superb all round.

Disadvantages: None.

Oliver Stone's "Platoon" is without a shadow of a doubt one of the finest films ever created. The film won four academy awards including best picture, best sound, best editing and best director for Stone. Set in Vietnam at the height of the Vietnamese war it tells the story of the men who fought and died for their country.

What makes the film, in my opinion so amazing, is that it shows so well how the soldiers behaved, the conditions they lived in and why they lost the war. At times, the GI's (soldiers) were completely out of control, stoned off their faces on dope and going off raping the local women and even young girls. The film shys away from none of this, showing the physcological struggle of the soldiers as they try to overcome the incredible stresses of living in such atrocious conditions, surviving with such small levels of sleep and fighting a bitter war.

The main character in the story is a young naive man called Chris Taylor (played by Charlie Sheen, who gives a superb performance) who volunteers for service in Vietnam and soon discovers that he has made an incredible and life changing mistake. Taylor's superiors, two sergeants, played by Tom Berenger and William Dafoe, are two excellent combat soldiers who end up spending more time fighting each other than they do fighting the war, Berenger plays a man who will let nothing get in his way, he believes in his job so completely that he is happy to end the lives of apparently innocent civilians to get to where he wants to go. This attitude (which was apparently common in Vietnam) causes an air of distrust among some other soldiers, including Sheen and Dafoe and it causes a large rift which causes the soldiers to end up fighting amongst themselves.

This, amongst the other stresses of life in 'nam suffocates Sheen completely.

The quality of directing in this picture is unsurpassed, alongside superb acting (this was aided by the cast being put
through a strict training regime, where they were put through the same physical stresses as the real soldiers for a couple of weeks to wear them down and then they were thrown straight into filming, with a genuine, gaunt, haggered look to them), an incredible atmosphere and superb sound (the Digitally Mastered version is incredible!) makes this absolutely unmissable.

If you can, get hold of the DVD version which is in 16:9 mode, with superb picture quality, and amazing dolby digital sound. I cannot reccomend this film enough - if you like the genre, or you want something gritty, substantial or just shocking, see this film NOW.

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