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| Tom
Berenger, Willem Dafoe, Charlie Sheen, Forest Whittaker, Francesco.
Quinn, John C. McGinley, Richard Edson, Kevin Dillon, Reggie Johnson |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Bunny:
I told the padre the truth, man: I like it here. You get to do what
you want. Nobody fucks with you. The only worry you got is dyin', and
if that happens you won't know about it anyway. So what the fuck, man?
A
visceral depiction of the Vietnam war as experienced by a platoon of
infantry men.
 Platoon
provides a look of the Vietnam war from the point of view of the drafted
men of the American army. Most of them came from the bottom of the social
barrel and most of them hardly expected to survive. It makes for a sobering
view as these soldiers don't really care about the enemy they're up
against but instead are desperate to hold on to some semblance of humanity
and trying to cope with the hardships of the jungle and the constant
fear of dying. Some survive, some break down and others go insane. The
story is based on Oliver Stone's own experiences as a soldier and his
point of view in the movie is provided by Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen),
a naive young soldier who volunteered for the war. Stone builds up a
great narrative as we view the war through the eyes of Chris, who quickly
becomes numb to the horrors and dehumanizing combat. The action in the
movie mirrors his accumulated experiences, starting with a relatively
small ambush episode and ending with a horrifiying all-out assault by
the Vietcong when an American base is overrun by suicide commandos.
Amidst all of this, Stone puts Chris between two opposing characters
exemplifying the opposite extremes of America's involvement in Vietnam:
the Christ-like, dope-smoking humane Elias (Willem Dafoe) and the devilish,
utterly unsympathetic and kill-happy Barnes (Tom Berenger). Stone hammers
the point home in the voice-over by Chris, pointing out "I think
now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy, we fought ourselves.
The enemy was in us." Platoon won an Oscar for best picture
and it still holds up fifteen years later, with powerhouse performances
from the three main leads and its overall impact luckily undiminshed
by too many Tour Of Duty reruns. |
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There
have been two earlier releases that have gone out of print, one of which
features an audio commentary track from director Oliver Stone. Copies
of this release are being sold for huge amounts on Ebay. MGM/UA first
released a movie-only version, of which the Region 1 and Region 2 versions
are identical [see separate
review], and before long followed this up with a Special Edition
release, also nearly identical for Region 1 and Region 2, and adding
a documentary and two audio commentary tracks to the same transfer and
audio mix. This review covers this Special Edition release.
The
picture is anamorphically enhanced and framed at 1.85:1. Colors are
very good with plenty of detail. The picture quality is not consistent
though, white specks and grain pop up from time to time. Overall I was
very impressed with the picture though, having previously been exposed
to the movie through very bad looking TV and video versions. It's great
to finally see everything during the night-time jungle scenes.
The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is a dissapointment: the rear channels are
badly used (they sometimes drop out and then fade in again, very irritating)
and the overall sound lacks definition with almost everything coming
from the center channel (the dope smoking session to the tune of 'Tracks
Of My Tears' is decidedly underwhelming on this soundtrack). Fortunately
the dialogue doesn't suffer from all this, and my guess is that the
original track just isn't very good: the movie was made for a low budget
of $6 million, which may have something to do with it.
This
welcome new Special Edition release of Oliver Stone's memorable Oscar-winner
boasts quite
a few tantalizing new extras, including an audio commentary track
from the director himself. Stone is always interesting to listen to,
as he has proved on several other DVD and Laserdisc releases, but on
this track his mumbled comments often verge on the unintelligible, and
is interspersed with long pauses and sections where he merely describes
what is happening on-screen. Not so for the commentary track from military
adviser Dale Dye, who also makes an appearance in the movie and who
has performed in other movie roles since. He was responsible for drilling
the young cast on location in the Phillipines, and proves to have played
a very important part in the filmmaking process. His remarks are articulate,
to-the-point and almost always scene-specific, making this by far the
better of the two commentary tracks.
But even more engrossing is the 48-minute documentary that charts
the fillm's entire production from inception to release, and includes
plentiful behind-the-scenes footage and new interview footage of most
principals of cast and crew. Making this movie was clearly no picnic,
and an ordeal for the cast rivalled only by such legendary productions
as The Abyss and Jaws.
It makes for a most riveting documentary at least as entertaining as
the movie itself.
Rounding out these impressive extras are the theatrical trailer
and a selection of TV trailers. The
menus are subtly animated without any sound.
Gerard
Castelein and Dan Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: 2001
Click
here for IMDB info on Platoon.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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