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Platoon (film)

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Platoon
Movie poster by Bill Gold
Directed byOliver Stone
Written byOliver Stone
Produced byArnold Kopelson
StarringCharlie Sheen
Willem Dafoe
Tom Berenger
CinematographyRobert Richardson
Edited byClaire Simpson
Music byGeorges Delerue
Production
company
Distributed byOrion Pictures
Release date
December 19, Template:Fy
Running time
120 minutes
CountriesTemplate:FilmUK
Template:FilmUS
LanguageTransclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{langx|en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead.
Budget$6.5 million
Box office$136 million

Platoon is a 1986 war film written and directed by Oliver Stone and starring Charlie Sheen, Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe. It is the first of Stone's Vietnam War trilogy, followed by 1989's Born on the Fourth of July and 1993's Heaven & Earth.

The story is drawn from Stone's experiences as a U.S. infantryman in Vietnam and was written by him upon his return as a counter to the vision of the war portrayed in John Wayne's The Green Berets.[1] The film won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1986. In 2007, the American Film Institute placed Platoon at #86 in their "100 Years...100 Movies" poll. British television channel Channel 4 voted Platoon as the 6th greatest war film ever made, behind Full Metal Jacket and ahead of A Bridge Too Far.

Plot

Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) is a young American who has abandoned a privileged life at a university to enlist in the infantry, volunteering for combat duty in Vietnam. The year is 1967 and upon arrival, he sees dead soldiers in body bags being loaded into his plane, but more distressing to him is the shellshocked state of a departing soldier with the thousand-yard stare. Taylor and several other replacements have been assigned to Bravo Company, 25th Infantry division, "somewhere near the Cambodian border." Worn down by the exhausting work and living conditions, his enthusiasm for the war wanes quickly and he develops an admiration for the more experienced soldiers, despite their reluctance to extend their friendship.

One day, another new arrival, platoon commander Lieutenant Wolfe (Mark Moses) discusses the plans for a patrol later that night with the platoon sergeants: the compassionate Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe), harsh but hard core Staff Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger), cowardly lifer Sergeant Red O'Neil (John C. McGinley), and drug addict Sergeant Warren (Tony Todd). Barnes and Elias argue over whether to send the new men out on a patrol that is likely to be ambushed. O'Neil insists that the new troops go out instead of several men under him who are nearly finished with their tours of duty. Barnes agrees, only on the condition that O'Neil goes out as well.

That night, Taylor's sleeping unit is set upon by a squad of North Vietnamese Army soldiers. Gardner (Bob Orwig), a fellow new recruit, is killed, and another soldier, Tex (David Neidorf), is maimed. Despite having passed the watch duty to Junior (Reggie Johnson), a more experienced soldier who fell asleep, Taylor is blamed for the casualties (O'Neil is also to blame; he threw the grenade that maimed Tex). Immediately after the fighting Taylor discovers a light wound to his neck, and he is sent to the field hospital for treatment.

Taylor returns from the hospital and through a soldier named King (Keith David), gains acceptance from the "heads", a tight-knit group in his unit that socializes, dances, and takes drugs in an underground clubhouse. Elias is the leader of the "heads". Next door, the more traditional members of the unit drink beer and play cards. Taylor becomes a more seasoned soldier as the patrols continue and soon no longer stands out amongst the others.

During one patrol on January 1, 1968, two members of the platoon, Sandy (J. Adam Glover) and Sal (Richard Edson) find an abandoned bunker and are killed when they stumble upon a booby trap attached to a box of documents. Shortly after, a soldier named Manny Washington (Corkey Ford) goes missing. His mutilated body is found tied to a post close by. The platoon reaches a nearby village, where a food and weapons cache is discovered. Despite the villagers' denials, Barnes believes they are aiding Viet Cong soldiers and shoots the wife of the village chief in the head. The other soldiers explore the village. In one house, Taylor discovers a disabled boy and his mother hiding in a ditch beneath the floor. He harasses and taunts the boy but goes no further. However, Bunny (Kevin Dillon) then takes over and beats the boy to death with his gun, even though Sgt. O'Neil demanded the men to leave the house. Outside, Sergeant Elias arrives at the scene and starts a fistfight with Barnes over the incidents. Lieutenant Wolfe, passive during the shooting of the wife, eventually ends the fight, and relays orders from the company commander to burn the village. As the men leave, a group of four soldiers, including Bunny and Junior, drag a young Vietnamese girl into the bushes with the intentions of raping her. Taylor comes upon them and stops the group from raping the child.

Upon returning to base, Elias reports Barnes' actions to Captain Harris (Dale Dye), who cannot afford to remove Barnes due to a lack of personnel. However, Harris threatens to court martial Barnes if there is evidence that he committed a murder. O'Neil and Bunny, nervous about the possibility of an investigation, speak to Barnes and Bunny suggests fragging Elias. A narrating Taylor speaks of this as "a civil war in the platoon. Half with Elias, half with Barnes." On their next patrol the platoon is ambushed and pinned down in a firefight. Flash (Basile Achara) is killed and Sergeant Warren (Tony Todd) and Lerner (Johnny Depp) are badly injured in the resulting skirmish. Lieutenant Wolfe calls in wrong coordinates for artillery support, resulting in the deaths of Fu Sheng (Steve Barredo), Morehouse (Kevin Eshelman), and Tubbs (Andrew B. Clark) and the severe wounding of Ace (Terry McIlvain). Big Harold (Forest Whitaker) has his leg blown off by a trip-wire booby trap while trying to escape the artillery barrage. Elias, with Taylor, Rhah (Francesco Quinn), and Crawford (Chris Pedersen), go to intercept flanking enemy troops. Barnes orders the rest of the platoon to retreat to be airlifted from the area, and goes back into the jungle to find Elias's group. After sending Taylor, Rhah, and Crawford (who has been shot in the lung) back, Barnes finds Elias. Barnes fires three rounds into Elias' chest and leaves him for dead. Barnes reaches the helicopter, telling the others that Elias is dead. After they take off, the men see a severely wounded Elias emerge from the jungle, running from a large group of NVA soldiers. He dies after being shot several more times by the NVA while the American helicopters attempt to provide him cover overhead.

At the base, Taylor tries to talk his dwindling group of six heads into killing Barnes in retaliation, and King agrees with this, while Doc Gomez (Paul Sanchez) believes they should wait for "military justice" to decide Barnes's fate. Rhah reminds Taylor how much he admired Barnes when he first arrived, and that Barnes isn't meant to die, noting that on several previous occasions Barnes has sustained wounds that ought to have proven mortal: "the only thing that can kill Barnes, is Barnes." Barnes then appears, with a bottle of bourbon, and he has overheard Taylor calling for his murder. He enters the room, daring them to kill him. No one takes up the offer but as Barnes leaves, Taylor attacks him. Barnes quickly gets the upper hand, pins Taylor down and holds a knife to his face. Rhah urges him not to do it, and he leaves, but not before cutting Taylor under the eye.

The platoon is later sent back to the ambush area in order to build and maintain heavy defensive positions against potential attack. Rhah is promoted to Sergeant, commanding the remains of Elias's squad. The platoon is so severely weakened, though, that there are numerous gaps in their defense. When this is pointed out to him, Lt. Wolfe only replies that he does not "give a fuck" any more. The troops try to prepare for the incoming battle, during which they know the majority of them will die. Just hours before nightfall, King is allowed to go home as his tour of duty has come to an end. O'Neil tries to use Elias's R&R days for himself in order to escape the impending battle (in which he believes he will die). When he asks Barnes for permission, Barnes refuses, saying, "Everybody gotta die some time, Red." Junior tries to escape the battle by spraying mosquito repellent onto his feet and passing it off as trench foot. Bunny states that he feels no remorse for the murders he has committed, saying that he enjoys Vietnam, and goes on to proclaim himself to be Audie Murphy.

Francis (Corey Glover), one of the last few remaining "heads", is assigned to the same foxhole as Taylor. That night a large attack occurs and the American defensive perimeter is broken and the camp overrun. The command bunker is destroyed by a suicide bomber (Oliver Stone makes a cameo as the doomed battalion commander inside the bunker). Many members of the platoon are killed, including Lt. Wolfe, Parker (Peter Hicks), Doc, Bunny, and Junior. O'Neil survives only by hiding himself under a dead body. The company commander Captain Harris orders the Air Force pilots to "expend all remaining" inside his perimeter. During the chaos, Barnes and Taylor come face-to-face. As Barnes is about to kill Taylor with a shovel, the two are knocked unconscious by the last-ditch American napalm attack.

A wounded Taylor regains consciousness the next morning and finds Barnes, who is also wounded. Taylor aims an AK-47 rifle at Barnes, who lays helpless. Nonetheless, Barnes feels at first not threatened, and he dismissively orders Taylor to call a medic. When Taylor does not comply, but instead continues to aim his weapon, Barnes dares him to pull the trigger. Taylor shoots Barnes three times in the chest, killing him for Elias' death. Taylor then collapses and awaits medical attention. Interestingly, although not in the script, Taylor is seen on the verge of pulling the pin of a grenade that he found, only to drop it as reinforcements come to Taylor. (Charlie Sheen thought that Taylor would be committing suicide after killing Barnes. Oliver Stone thought that the mistake was good so he decided to keep it in the film.)

Francis emerges from his foxhole and stabs himself in order to be medevaced. O'Neil is found by other Americans, and Harris (much to O'Neil's distress) gives him command of the platoon. As he is loaded onto the helicopter, Taylor is reminded by Francis that because they have been wounded twice, they can go home. After bidding farewell to Rhah, Francis, Tony Hoyt (Ivan Kane) and Ebenhoch (Mark Ebenhoch) (his last surviving friends in the platoon; the other survivors are Rodriguez (Chris Castillejo), Huffmeister (Robert Galotti), and O'Neil), Taylor boards his helicopter. The helicopter flies away and Taylor weeps as he stares down at the destruction, while he (from a future perspective) narrates that he will forever be in Vietnam, with Barnes and Elias battling for what Rhah called "possession of his soul", and that he believes he and other veterans must rebuild themselves, and find goodness and purpose in their lives.

Cast

Development

"Vietnam was really visceral, and I had come from a cerebral existence: study... working with a pen and paper, with ideas. I came back really visceral. And I think the camera is so much more... that's your interpreter, as opposed to a pen."
—Oliver Stone's return from active duty in Vietnam resulted in a "big change" in how he viewed life and the war. Unproduced screenplay Break was the result, and it eventually provided the basis for Platoon.[2]

After his tour of duty in Vietnam ended in 1968, Stone wrote a screenplay called Break: a semi-autobiographical account detailing his experiences with his parents and his time in Vietnam. It featured several characters who were the seeds of those who would end up in Platoon. The script was set to music from The Doors; Stone sent the script to Jim Morrison in the hope he would play the lead (Morrison never responded but the script was returned to Oliver Stone shortly after Morrison's death by Morrison's manager - Morrison had the script with him when he died in Paris). Though Break went ultimately unproduced, it was the spur for him to attend film school.[2]

After penning several other produced screenplays in the early 1970s, Stone came to work with Robert Bolt on an unproduced screenplay, The Cover-up. Bolt's rigorous approach rubbed off on Stone, and he was inspired to use the characters from his Break screenplay (who in turn were based upon people Stone knew in Vietnam) as the basis for a new screenplay titled The Platoon. Producer Martin Bregman attempted to elicit studio interest in the project, but Hollywood was still apathetic about Vietnam. However, the strength of Stone's writing on The Platoon was enough to get him the job penning Midnight Express in 1978. Despite that film's critical and commercial success, and that of other Stone-penned films at the time, most studios were still reluctant to finance The Platoon, as they feared a film about the Vietnam War would not attract an audience. After the release of The Deer Hunter and Apocalypse Now, they then cited the perception that these films were considered the pinnacle of the Vietnam War film genre as reasons not to make The Platoon.[2]

Stone instead attempted to break into mainstream direction via the easier-to-finance horror genre, but The Hand failed at the box office, and Stone began to think that The Platoon would never be made. Stone wrote Year of the Dragon for a lower-than-usual fee of $200,000, on the condition from producer Dino De Laurentiis that he would then produce The Platoon. De Laurentiis secured financing for the film, but struggled to find a distributor. Because de Laurentiis had already spent money sending Stone to the Philippines to scout for locations, he decided to keep control of the film's script until he was repaid.[2] Then Stone's script for what would become Salvador was passed to John Daly of British production company Hemdale. Once again, this was a project that Stone had struggled to secure financing for, but Daly loved the script and was prepared to finance both Salvador and The Platoon off the back of it. Stone shot Salvador first, before turning his attention to what was by now called Platoon.[2]

Production

File:Platoon greenspon.jpg
The famous scene depicting Elias with his hands in the air is a recreation of a 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon[1]

Platoon was filmed on the island of Luzon in the Philippines, starting in February 1986. The production of the film on a scheduled date was almost canceled due to the political upheaval in the country with then-dictator Ferdinand Marcos, but with the help of a producer well-known in Asia, Mark Hill, the shoot went on as scheduled. The shoot lasted 54 days and cost $6.5 million. The production made a deal with the Philippine military for the use of military equipment.[2]

James Woods, who had starred in Stone's previous film, Salvador, was offered a part in Platoon. He turned the role down, later saying he "couldn't face going into another jungle with [Stone]". Upon arrival in the Philippines, the cast was sent on a two-week intensive training course, during which they had to dig foxholes and were subject to forced marches and night-time "ambushes" which utilized special-effects explosions. Stone explained that he was trying to break them down, "to mess with their heads so we could get that dog-tired, don't give a damn attitude, the anger, the irritation... the casual approach to death".[2]

Stone makes a cameo appearance as the battalion commander in the final battle. Dale Dye, who played company commander Captain Harris, is a U.S. Marine Corps Vietnam veteran who also acted as the film's technical advisor.[1] Template:Sound sample box align right

Adagio for Strings
The famous theme of Platoon, composed by Samuel Barber.
Problems playing this file? See media help.

Template:Sample box end Music used in the film includes Adagio for Strings by Samuel Barber, "White Rabbit" by Jefferson Airplane and "Okie From Muskogee" by Merle Haggard. During a scene in the "Underworld" the soldiers sing along to "The Tracks of My Tears" by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, which also featured in the film's trailer.

Soundtrack

Platoon features a variety of licensed songs from the late sixties and early seventies.

Reception

Critics both praised and criticized Platoon for its presentation of the violence seen in the war and the moral ambiguity created by the realities of guerrilla warfare, when unit leaders have to make a choice between saving the lives of their own men and taking those of suspected guerrilla sympathizers.

It shows some U.S. soldiers as violent and indiscriminate killers. Fueled by rage at seeing their friends killed and maimed by booby traps, they take their anger out on villagers who were found hiding a cache of firearms, killing and torturing Vietnamese villagers and setting their village on fire. The film has been banned in Vietnam.[3]

The film currently has an 88% rating at Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 86%.[4]

Platoon's release was timely. During the mid-1980s there was a softening of attitudes towards Vietnam veterans (which had taken over ten years, since the last American soldiers pulled out of Vietnam in 1973). Sparked by the dedication of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial in Washington, D.C., in 1982, Hollywood suddenly saw a small surge in films related to the war.

Awards and nominations

Award

Nominations

Honors

American Film Institute recognition

Marketing

The film was marketed with the tag line, "The first casualty of war is innocence", an adaptation of Senator Hiram Johnson's assertion in 1917 that "The first casualty of war is the truth."[5] (c.f. Aeschylus (BC 525 - BC 456), "In war, truth is the first casualty.") Several licensed tie-ins were released between 1986-1988. A video game was produced by Ocean Software for various formats. The Nintendo Entertainment System version was ported and published by Sunsoft. Loosely based on the film, the object of the game is to survive in the Vietnamese jungle against guerrilla attacks. A wargame was also produced, by Avalon Hill, as an introductory game to attract young people into the wargaming hobby, and a board game was also produced.[6] A novelization of the film was written by Dale Dye.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ a b c Stone, Oliver (2001). Platoon DVD commentary (DVD). MGM Home Entertainment.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Salewicz, Chris (1999-07-22). Oliver Stone: The Making of His Movies (New Ed edition ed.). UK: Orion Publishing Group. ISBN 0-75281-820-1. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |origdate= ignored (|orig-date= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091763/trivia
  4. ^ http://uk.rottentomatoes.com/m/platoon/
  5. ^ Mooallem, Jon (February 29, 2004). "How movie taglines are born". Retrieved November 13, 2008. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= and |date= (help)
  6. ^ "Platoon (1986)". BoardGameGeek. Retrieved 2008-06-12.
Wikiquote has quotations related to Platoon (film).


Awards and achievements
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Picture
1986 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Golden Globe for Best Picture - Drama
1987 		Succeeded by
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