It’s one of the top 250 films ever made according to IMDB
Released in 1986 Oliver Stone’s Platoon remains one of the greatest war films ever made, not simply because of the stunning performance of its lead actor Charlie Sheen, but for its unflinching depiction of the horrors of war.
The movie was an autobiographical passion project for Stone, taking the director ten years for him to get made and eventually taking home four Academy Awards, including Best Picture.
The plot sees a young recruit thrust into the Vietnam War at the Cambodian border and caught up in a feud between two sergeants. Charlie Sheen, Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, Forest Whitaker, Kevin Dillon, Johnny Depp and John C McGinley, are among those who star.
At the time the New York Times described Platoon as “possibly the best work of any kind about the Vietnam War since Michael Herr’s vigorous and hallucinatory book Dispatches.”
Whilst Rotten Tomatoes states how “informed by director Oliver Stone’s personal experiences in Vietnam, Platoon forgoes easy sermonizing in favour of a harrowing, ground-level view of war, bolstered by no-holds-barred performances from Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe.”
The Boston Globe said that “although Platoon is not the easiest film to watch, it is one of the best at reminding us that the cinema is not always interested in evading or distorting history. Sometimes it tells the truth.”
Platoon will be shown tonight on ITV4 from 11:10pm.
