IMDb #174 Review: Platoon (1986)

Source: Wikipedia

A promising young fellow drops out of college to volunteer for infantry service in the Vietnam War. His excuse: so he can "learn something." He quickly learns this was a godawful idea.

He learns how fun it is to slog through mud. While feeding the jungle bug population with his blood and sweat. And functioning on two hours of sleep nightly. And keeping a lookout for leaf-hatted Vietcong lurking in the trees.

This ain't your usual guts-and-glory war epic. Solidarity? These dudes can't even spell it. The whole crew hates the new guy, hates the officers, and hate each other most of all. Someone screws up, people die, they pin it on the new guy.

Heat cooks the life out of fresh meat. No exception for our hero.

He finds comfort in two things. Letters to Grandma provide voiceover narration and a stock symbol of the American life he casually discarded. As for the other, what can be more American than recreational drug use.

Serious trouble starts when the titular platoon encounters a village. Do these peasants support the enemy, or don't they? Doesn't matter. The Americans head-butt the language barrier till the collective migraine spurs terrible snap decisions. Torch the place. Letting the inhabitants live is a courtesy, one they are happy to rescind upon the slightest resistance.

To allay the realism and keep things artsy, two officers embody a painfully blatant dark/light metaphor. The brutal scar-faced Barnes wants to kill all the yellow bastards, while moderately handsome Elias tends to give a damn about human life. Given the tone of Vietnam, you can guess how this ends. (Poorly.)

Because, contrary to the aphorism, foxholes are atheist factories.

120 minutes.