“Platoon” may not be the best war movie ever made now that we have “Saving Private Ryan” but it is definitely the most important. Oliver Stone based this movie on his experiences in Vietnam, which not only gave the audience an important and rare glance at war from the inside, but it was also one of the first war movies that dared to tell the truth.
Unlike the conspiracy theory movies Oliver Stone would come to be known for, “Platoon” does not dwell on the wherefores and whys of how the US found itself involved in this awful mess, nor does it try to politicize the motives of anyone involved, the film, much like the people stuck in the war, just has sort of an “it is what it is” air about it.
Told from the perspective of Charlie Sheen’s character Pvt. Chris Taylor through a series of letters to his family that are narrated behind the action, the movie starts with his arrival in Vietnam in 1968. His squad leader, Sgt. Elias (played by Willem Dafoe in a rare and surprisingly fitting turn as a decent and caring guy) is at philosophical and tactical odds with the Platoon Sergeant SSG. Barnes (Tom Berenger). Taylor winds up caught in the middle- conflicted between his genuine respect for Elias and his obligatory respect for Barnes. Conflicts come to a head when nobody can agree on how to react to the discovery a farm village on the Cambodian border which may or may not be a secret base camp for the North Vietnamese, with Barnes and “his” people wanting to kill every man, woman and child in the village and Elias’ men wanting to just move along.
This scene winds up becoming one of the most telling and important in the whole film, as not only do we found out exactly where each character stands in their level of discipline as a soldier- in other words, we separate the men from the baby-killers. This sets up the Platoon’s internal Civil War of sorts. Not only that, but for the first time we see the signs that Chris might be succumbing to the darker side of his soul as he ruthlessly taunts a one-legged, mentally retarded and blind villager before finally, tearfully snapping out of it.
The advancement of character development that takes place after this scene is remarkable, particularly one segment where Elias and Chris are shown having a heart-to-heart conversation while on a night patrol. Elias mentions that he believed in what he was doing and believed in the mission in 1965, but realizes now how dire things are. Chris seems shocked at this prospect and even more shocked that Elias thinks the war is hopeless, which implies naivety but also his belief that they are doing the right thing.
Combining this knowledge with the discovery that Chris was not drafted, but rather enlisted freely out of a sense of guilt over the fact that only the poor were being drafted while the rich were all but certain of getting out of it reveals why Chris is truly a hero. He has no significant accomplishments on the battlefield, he never gets the chance to save a fellow soldier from death, but because of his motivation for going and his thoughtless willingness to perform the ultimate self-sacrifice, Chris Taylor is probably the most heroic figure in any war film.
“We’ve been kicking other people’s asses for so long I figure it’s time we got ours kicked” (Sgt. Elias, “Platoon”)
An extremely prevalent subject that is continually referenced in the film was the abundance of “fragging” incidents- killing of fellow U.S Troops, in times of disagreement. One of Barnes’ loyalists suggests it, Barnes eventually does do it to Elias (in one of the most iconic and heartbreaking images in modern cinema) and several of Elias’ loyalists discuss the possibility of doing so to Barnes, which Chris finally does in the end. War movies have always done a progressively better job of illustrating the camaraderie of soldiers in wartime, but largely ignore this very shameful reality.
The thing about this movie I admire above all and appreciate most as a veteran myself is the fact there is no glossing over the circumstances that lead men into war nor the prospects that await them when it’s over. Chris mentions in one of his letters that the men in his platoon are the dregs of society, the bottom of the economic barrel from their respective towns who had nothing before the war and nothing waiting for them afterward (a grim foreshadowing of things to come). However, he also mentions that they are the backbone of society and the ones we always look to when it is time to send someone off to die for a cause. Driving this point home does not try to push the sense of heroism of the average soldier on us, but it does illustrate the point very clearly that as long as we live in a class-based society then there will always be a sense of disproportion in the armed forces.
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