Platoon, by Oliver Stone

Platoon, by Oliver Stone

                Platoon was the Best Film of 1986.

It has won both the Academy Award and the Golden Globe in this category, with more awards added…

Best Director, both Oscar and Golden Globe, Best Director for Oliver Stone at both Academy Awards and Golden Globe ceremonies, plus the BAFTA.

On the IMDB site, this is the film at number 186 on the Top Rated Movies list, which says a lot about its popularity.

We could argue that this extraordinary achievement has given Oliver Stone to embark on a joy ride:

Wall Street, Born on the Fourth of July, The Doors, JFK, Natural Born Killers, Nixon, W., Any Given Sunday followed.

This is testament to the magnificent qualities that this filmmaker, writer and exquisite director has.

                Nevertheless, the choices of Stone the man appall some.

Including this admirer of (most of) his work.

Oliver Stone has been close to some despicable, mass murderers, obnoxious tyrants from various parts of the world:

                Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and more recently Vladimir Putin among others.

The view that the world needs Bolivarian and other left extreme revolutions is enchanting for many.

It is a stupid initiative nevertheless.

Those of us who have benefited from the divine, resplendent advantages of communism can testify.

In addition, in the West and other intellect challenged areas of the world, many silly men and women suffer from amnesia.

They remember the horrors of Nazism, which they must, but completely forget that Stalin, Mao and other such leftish luminaries have been responsible for the death of many millions more than Hitler and his butchers.

                How is this possible?

Anyway, the fact that Stone sends letters of support- with the likes of other bright minds like Ruffalo- to the extremist Melenchon, supporting this nut who wants to join the said Bolivarian revolution, means that this viewer is biased and in spite of the fact that he rejoiced in watching the aforementioned pictures, every new Oliver Stone fare is met with skepticism.

Having said all this, Platoon is a classic movie that will be part of film history with Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket and other war movies that depict the terrors of conflict, human loss and absolute humiliation.

The Platoon does not offer a triumphant fresco of the war, but on the contrary it shows the atrocities committed by the US Army, the infighting and absurdity of that and other wars, while placing Chris Taylor aka the once sober and superb Charlie Sheen, at the center of the story, which moves various characters on and off stage at the same time.

Sergeant Robert Barnes is the ultimate antihero, responsible for murdering both American and Vietnamese innocent people, fighting with the reasonable and ethical Sergeant Elias Grodin, portrayed by the Oscar nominated for this role, Willem Dafoe, who is again on the short list at the Academy Awards, thirty one years later, for his part in the motion picture The Florida Project, in which he shines, even if the production is not seraphic.

There are multiple remarkable scenes, from the clashes in the jungle, to the assaults on the American combatants, to the punishment administered to innocent civilians in a burned village, where Barnes and Elias clash, with the latter preventing the monster from potentially killing a five year old child.

With a court martial trial hanging over him, the villain may resort to any means to eliminate his nemesis.

Chris has an obscene moment, when he shoots at the feet of a challenged individual in the Vietnamese village that they are about to destruct, making the poor man dance with his shooting spree.

However, he gradually compensates for this outrageous behavior and he saves one girl from being gang raped and then tries to help Elias and get him out of the jungle when Barnes is after his enemy, trying to shoot him.

Chris and Barnes come to blows and the former wants the latter to face consequences for his murders.

What happens will not be revealed here obviously, it is part of the intrigue and the suspense that keeps audiences leaning off their chairs…