Platoon
1986 · Directed by Oliver Stone
Original language: English
- drama
- war
- action
The story
As a young and naive recruit in Vietnam, Chris Taylor faces a moral crisis when confronted with the horrors of war and the duality of man.
What it’s like
Gritty, sweat-soaked handheld camerawork puts the viewer inside a jungle platoon, with shallow focus, muddy greens and browns, and frequent flashes of muzzle fire and tracer light cutting through humid dusk and night. Sound design carries much of the weight: helicopter rotors, sudden automatic bursts, insects and rain, with Samuel Barber's Adagio for Strings and a few restrained cues rising only at moments of grief. Pacing is restless and episodic, built on long stretches of dull waiting broken by sudden ambushes, a minefield, and a bunker assault, so the dread lives in the in-between. Tone is bleak, morally weary and fatalistic, with a young soldier's innocence worn down over the story into something harder and more unsettled. Violence is frequent and graphic: close-up gunfire, bloody wounds, dying and death, and scenes of village cruelty and war crimes that land with a sickening, lingering weight, though there is no sexual content. It suits a serious, late-night viewing when you are ready for heaviness, and it is for people who want an unflinching, hand-held war film about conscience, brotherhood and the corrosive effects of combat.
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