Softwing Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

Comwayon A Disappointing Continuation

Hadrina The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

adonis98-743-186503 A young soldier in Vietnam faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man. Oliver Stone's Platoon is truly a triumph both on paper and on screen, the perfomances from the cast were excellent especially Tom Berenger, Williem Dafoe and Charlie Sheen were at top form in this one. The soundtrack was very moving (especially the scene with Elias) there's also alot of young actors such as Johnny Depp and Forest Whitaker who have small roles in it. Platoon showcases the horror that War does in men but also the horror we do ourselves and how War changes us and turns us into beasts and shadows of ourselves. This is a War film that you should see. (A+)

berndjp This movie might leave the viewer unsatisfied. No heroes, no happy end, no winning, even the humorous scenes are disturbing. Instead, this movie shows the main character's, a man of privilege, education and conscience, transformation by war and military service. War, an extraordinary circumstance, can bring out the best or worst in men, transform them according to their disposition and also change the warring nations en suite. All this and more is incorporated here, underlined by a marvelous score, convincingly acted in almost every role, scarring to watch, thought provoking and honest. On the downside, there are some minor continuity errors, lack in realism and typical Oliver Stone-esque transcendental scenes, though non of these infringe on any of the premises of this film unless you are a stickler for every last detail. This is deservedly amongst the best films about the U.S. Vietnam war ever made.

tomronning50 I was there in 1970, and could identify with many of the scenes . . .

Asif Khan (asifahsankhan) Many great war films of the Vietnam conflict are centered around these themes of blurred morality and the uselessness of war, and Oliver Stone's Platoon is among the most well known. Stone, who wrote and directed the film and also served as an infantryman in Vietnam, first rose to fame for his war films that dramatized the infamous Cold War conflict. The main premise of his magnum opus are the inner conflicts within US forces deployed to southeast Asia, rather than the actual physical conflicts between them and the Communist-allied Vietnamese forces. More broadly, Platoon analyzes the "duality of man" concept that has been studied in numerous other works, from fellow Vietnam War films like Full Metal Jacket (1987) and Apocalypse Now (1979), all the way back to the latter's source material and inspiration in Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Platoon focuses on the moral decay of soldiers in American units, and how this contributes to their inability to fight their Vietnamese enemies. Charlie Sheen sums up this theme with his on-the-nose voiceover, "We did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves... and the enemy was in us."Vietnam War-movies tend to be even harder to watch than most war flicks, as the lines between the "heroes" and "villains" are blurred more than in any other dramatized period of warfare in recent human history. In wars like World War II, which are widely known for being as black and white as military conflicts have become, the contrasting features between the heroic forces we are meant to root for and their opposing enemy platoons are well defined. That is almost never the case with the United States-North Vietnamese/Vietcong conflict in Vietnam during the overarching Cold War.That is not to say that most wars throughout human history have not been many shades of grey, with the winners and losers not always corresponding with the righteous and evil. But because of the guerrilla nature and infamous legacy of the Vietnam War itself - namely, the immense public protest against American involvement - the Vietnam War remains by far the most unpopular war in modern American history. With that said, most of the film is fantastic, from the aforementioned narrative to the grim lightning of the southeast Asian jungles that emphasize the film's tone, to the poignant, melancholic score.