one of the greatest war movies and DVDs (Platoon (DVD))

Member Name: batmoz

Product:	Platoon (DVD)
Date:	29/05/03 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent movie, excellent commentaries, excellent doc

Disadvantages: none

Vicious, exciting and lyrical in equal doses, Oliver Stone's most personal film is still his best (well, we'll have to wait and see "Alexander"). Following a young recruit (Charlie Sheen ((original choice was Keanu Reeves but he didn't like the violence))) on his first tour of duty, it's a harsh account of lost innocence, with Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe in fabulous form as the two very different sergeants who shape him. There are rough spots, but only "Apocalypse Now" pips "Platoon" as best 'Nam movie ever.
And there'll never be better support to "Platoon" than this double-discer. As well as the usual trailers, TV spots and picture gallery, you get a behind-the-scenes feature and two magnificent commentaries. The first, from Stone, mixes on-set tales with pained remembrances of his own time in the war, while the second, from military advisor Captain Dale Dye, offers practical accounts of how they made the film so accurate.
The best extra, though, is the "A Tour Of The Inferno" documentary which reveals how Stone and Dye took a bunch of young actors out to the Phillipines in the middle of the revolution and, through boot camp harshness and sleep deprivation, turned them into a fair xerox of a war-weary Vietnam platoon.

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