sparksjl I do not watch Vietnam movies because having served in the war, most are far from the reality my expediences of combat. However Oliver Stone did a great job of bringing his own wartime experience to the screen. Charlie Sheen was not the first choice for his part and his performance showed why. He apparently left a lot of his character wisping away in the smoke of a hash pipe and not in the movie. Worse and by that I mean THE worst actor (not character) but actor was Kevin Dillon. Having watched Entourage and enjoying it, except for Dillon, he also caused my 7/10 score for Platoon. It was just Johnny Drama in Vietnam and Entourage was Bunny survives the war (unfortunately) and goes to Hollywood. Dillon in everything I have watched him in, is a stiff, cardboard cutout of someone that should be there but didn't show up. He has only 2 facial expressions, bad attempts to smile and worse attempts to frown, from which he tries to cover the entire range of a characters emotional actions and responses.Willem Defoe, Tom Berenger and Forest Whitaker were the three main actors who along with several others rated this movie a 7 for me. The soundtrack was great, the cinematography was excellent and for that Oliver Stone deserves his awards. I have however watched my last anything with Kevin Dillon anywhere in it. In all, I do so wish Mr. Stone had looked further than Charlie Sheen for an actor, a real actor anyway, and for my money the movie would have been better without the character of Bunny entirely if Dillon was the only choice. YMMV

matthewjamesgraham Still after all these years, platoon is my favourite movie. Sheen, Berenger and Dafoe are so good in this. No lie seen it 15 or so times. Highly recommended. Awesome music soundtrack and memorable scenes like when Elias is running from the enemy alone

Evan Wessman (CinematicInceptions) I kind of feel bad saying that I didn't like this movie because of it's content but maybe I shouldn't. It has occurred to me that I might appreciate it more if I went back and watched it again, but I'm not very inclined to do so. Maybe I also just can't appreciate it as much because I'm a millennial and the Vietnam War is not exactly close to home for me like it would have been for people at the time of its release. There were just a lot of problems that I found with it. First off, the characters were way to hard to tell apart. This isn't uncommon for war movies since everyone is by necessity dressed the same, but it was more of a problem here because the conflict was more character driven. I could not tell Elias and Barnes apart for the majority of the movie and definitely couldn't tell you how their views differed. I did try to pay attention, but I think that part of my confusion was caused by the two of them not getting distinct enough introductions or dialogue. This applied to all of the other characters too. They weren't distinct enough, and since, the enemy is within the platoon, as is so blatantly pointed out, there should have be more distinction between the characters. Taylor was another problem. He was really generic to the point that he did not feel real at all, which made his voice-over letters to his grandmother quite dry and his random acts of violence just seem weird. It seemed like he had strong views, but none of these really seemed to motivate him outside of his volunteering in the first place. I know a lot of the appeal of the movie was how it portrayed the experience of the soldiers realistically. Obviously I wasn't in Vietnam so I can't exactly say whether it is, but I found Tim O'Brien's "The Things They Carried" to be a lot more compelling and realistic-feeling than Platoon. Regardless, I did not connect with the characters' struggles that much. This is kind of where I feel bad saying that I didn't like it. I know it's not a movie to be enjoyed, but I really like movies that gross me out and make me cringe a little and there was nothing like that in Platoon that I could find.So, I can't really recommend this that strongly. Obviously a lot of people like this movie, and I don't think badly of them for it, but I find Platoon to be overrated. I wouldn't watch it for fun, because it is by no means made for entertainment. It's kind of something that you should watch to be informed, whether about the Vietnam war or the soldier's plight or something. Overall Rating: 4.6/10

bgar-80932 Probably the best Vietnam war movie I've ever seen. Most are too depressing to really enjoy and this one is depressing too but it works for me. It shows all the terrible side of this war even men turning on each other and probably the best character killed by someone in his own crew. It's raw and not uplifting but it's really well acted and I like it more than the others I've seen. Apocalypse Now is one of the other classics for this war and I really didn't like it at all. Willem Dafoe was great.