I have to admit, I'm not much of an Oliver Stone admirer - I
think he overblows everything with so much style that the story
gets lost sometime. However, to say that Platoon is a glorification
of violence? This is probably, I think, the one movie that
Stone did the best job with, in terms of showing violence and
how horrible it really is to people who have found themselves in
it, and unable to control it. It's extremely anti-war, showing
how war can change people to the extent that they can do
bloody, sadistic, even cowardly things they would not otherwise
have been capable of. And except for Berenger and Dafoe, none
of the characters are ALL good, or ALL bad (though Bunny comes
pretty close, although he has that killer quote about the Indy
500...). Most war movies have the good guys in the platoon, and
the bad ones, and they're very clearly marked from the beginning -
they weren't here.
 
Maybe I'm prejudiced about the effect of this movie - but try
watching it with a Vietnam Vet sometime, and see if they think
it makes Vietnam look glorious. No way - my husband says that it's
one of the most accurate depictions he's seen of the war, but
he still can't watch it all the way through.
 
As far as great anti-war movies, though, also add The Big Red
One, which is just terrific and the role of Lee Marvin's life;
and for a great war movie altogether, A Walk in the Sun, which
just follows a platoon on patrol in WWII (and from which I think
Oliver Stone might have gotten some of his plot...)
 
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Sally G. Waters, Queen of Reference   /   "Dignity.
([log in to unmask])           /    Always dignity."
Stetson Univ. College of Law Library  /
1401 61st St. S.                      / --Don Lockwood
St. Petersburg, FL  33707             /