And the Best Picture goes to....

First, I’d like to mention that this film was written and directed by Oliver Stone, who served his own tour of duty in Vietnam in 1967.  I’m sure that his actual experiences of what he witnessed as a soldier helped him in the development of this project.

We start off with our main character of Chris Taylor forgoing college and enlisting in the Vietnam War to do his patriotic duty like his father and grandfather before him.  He’s an innocent newbie that is dropped into the jungle and forced to deal with snakes, red ants, torrential rains, as well as the Vietcong.  But as the film progresses, we watch him harden as a result of the horrors that he experiences until finally going on his own murderous rampage which includes an act of revenge.    

Though Charlie Sheen does a very fine job in this role, I think I would have preferred Johnny Depp, who had a little bit more of that baby faced look that would have suited the young Chris Taylor.

This film also features Mark Moses as an ineffective lieutenant, who’s behavior divides this unit in two.  Half of the group follow the psychotic Sgt. Barnes, played by Tom Berenger, while the others rally around the more benevolent Sgt. Elias, played by Willem Dafoe.  Stone deliberately cast these two actors against type, and it was a move that worked, and the tension between the two continues to effectively build through the movie with murderous results.  Both Berenger and Dafoe received the only acting nominations in the production.

It also packs quite a punch with nicely re-enacted scenes of the war and combat situations, however, am I the only one to notice that the actors all had fresh haircuts and were clean shaven through-out this production?  They were burnt out and exhausted so shouldn’t they have been portrayed as a ragtag bunch with five o’clock shadows? Surprising since Oliver Stone supposedly went to the trouble of having the packs of Marlboro cigarettes match the same shade of red used at that time.  Not a major point but it does feel like they dropped the ball in that respect, considering this was a major motion picture shot entirely on location. 

However, this is a good story and performances, and successfully holds your attention for the duration of its runtime.