War is bad. But what about sanctimonious directors?
Plot summary (with spoilers): Chris Taylor and some other new recruits arrive in Vietnam, in a station near the border of Cambodia. They see their first casualty, a dead body in a bodybag, being loaded onto a chopper. Some veterans pass by with catcalls and derision. You don't know what you're in for, and all that. Taylor's immediately frightened. He meets Staff Sergeant Barnes, who's all hardass and shit. Then there's Sergeant O'Neill, who's Barnes' lackey, and Sergeant Elias, who's more laid back.
Chris voice overs--uh, I mean, writes a letter to his family back home--that the veterans don't talk to the newbies like him much because they don't trust them yet, and besides don't really see the point of getting attached. Chris somewhat patronizingly talks about how they're all just "regular guys" who are uneducated and have no hope or lives to return to, but hey, at least here they're heroes. Or something like that.
Finally, there's a mission. They go out into the Cambodian jungle to...find some Viet Cong and attack them, I guess. Maybe take over a base? Yeah, that's probably it. In the jungle, Chris is besieged by red ants who bite up his neck and then endless rain and hiking and misery. They settle in for the night, and Chris is a sniper rifle and told to stand guard for the next four hours while everyone sleeps. Cut to four hours later, Chris wakes up a veteran grunt, Junior, and tells him it's his shift. Junior barely opens his eyes, but takes the rifle from Chris. Chris hunkers down, pulls the hood over his face, and tries to sleep. He doesn't see that Junior has immediately gone back to sleep himself. Uh-oh.
Sometime later, Chris wakes up. The rain has stopped. He senses something's amiss. He looks over and sees Junior and the rest of the guys sound asleep. He peers off into the distance. Far off, he sees movement. Someone with a gun is approaching. Then some more shadows behind him. They're getting closer. Chris pulls the hood tighter onto his head, and just gapes, unable to move or sound any kind of alarm. (This is by far the best sequence in the movie). Suddenly, gun fire rings out from Chris' camp. Obviously, someone else is awake. There's a firefight; Chris gets grazed in the neck, another newbie gets killed by a grenade. Chris thinks he's dying and another solider King, holds him and comforts him. Junior screams that it's all Chris's fault, that he was supposed to be guarding! Barnes reads Chris the riot act. Chris tries to defend himself, but no one will listen. The mission is scraped, and they head back to base.
Chris, King, and another dude are doing grunt work. King asks Chris for his backstory, and Chris reveals that he's rich and that he volunteered to come here. King and the other dude are poor, and were drafted, and can't believe anyone would ever come here on purpose. Chris says they're all in the same boat now, but King points out that after the war is over, Chris has options and opportunity, while they have none. Then he says some more twee shit about the differences between rich and poor people, then Oliver Stone appears, looks into the camera, and says "The More You Know" and recommends everyone read the Communist Manifesto.
Later that day, Chris is invited to a party. A pot party, to be precise. Everyone's toking up, Chris says he's never tried it before, so they give him a toke. Someone is hotboxing with a gas mask. Heh, awesome. A shirtless Sergeant Elias lounges on a hammock. He casually gets off and saunters over to Chris, joint tangling from his lips. He stares at Chris, who's so high he's rocking back and forth. To say that Willem Dafoe is unattractive is to say that The North Pole is kinda chilly. Add to that a "Chris's pot-fueled POV" camera angle, and I'm just about ready to go to Vietnam right now, just to avoid having to keep looking at Dafoe's face. Yeesh. Elias lifts up his gun, and points it at Chris, who doesn't flinch. "Put your mouth on that," he says, leering. Chris does so. Yes, he sucks on the end of Elias's gun. Holy shit. This is gayer than Brokeback Mountain (which should be on this list, dammit!). Elias inhales, then blows the smoke into the gun, which Chris greedily sucks up. Everyone laughs at their insanely gay Reefer Madness.
And we're at another gathering, where Sergeants Barnes and O'Neill are hanging out with some of the other troops, including a badass and disturbingly hot Kevin Dillon (Bunny) and blink-and-you'll-miss-him Johnny Deep. They're playing cards and drinking alcohol, like real men.
Lt Wolf shows up and tries to ingratiate himself with the guys. They're polite, but clearly don't want him there, according to movie lore that says sergeants always hate and resent lieutenants. After a short bit, Wolf leaves, leaving O'Neill to remark that he's a shitstain, and that he'll never make it out of Nam alive. "Some guys, you just know. You have a feeling, they won't make it, you know?" Barnes looks at O'Neill, who looks down at his cards. It's clear Barnes has the same feeling, but not about Wolf.
It's time for another mission in the jungle. Some more time has passed, Chris's neck wound has healed, and he's a more confident solider now. After a night in the jungle, they wake up and one of their soldiers is missing. They split up and do recon, Eventually, Barnes and some others find the soldier tied to a tree and mutilated, dead. Everyone is overcome with anger. They stumble across a small village, still feeling angry and scared. Most of them are screaming at the elderly men and women and children, some of whom are hiding in holes dug in the ground, all of whom are weak and terrified. Bunny shoots a couple of pigs out of spite. Chris finds an old man with one leg and his wife hiding in a hole under the floor of their hut, and he drags them out. He starts screaming at them both. Bunny joins him, laughing hysterically. Finally, Chris starts shooting the ground at the man's foot, telling him to dance. After a moment, he starts to come to his senses, and realizes how he's losing control. He starts crying. Bunny's disgusted with that, and in a fit, hits the old man with the but of his gun until the man's head is split open. He makes a comment about the man's brains looking gross. Fuck you, Johnny Drama! Chris is horrified, and runs out of the hut.
Outside, the women and children are being rounded up and questioned. Barnes keeps yelling at one old guy, certain that the guy knows where the Viet Cong are hiding in the area. The old man swears he doesn't know. Suddenly, his wife starts lunging at Barnes, trying to attack him, spitting at him. The other soldiers easily hold her back. Barnes ignores her at first and keeps questioning the man, and she keeps squawking. Finally, he turns, raises his gun, and shoots her in the head. The old mans starts screaming. The other soldiers look at him in horror, but say nothing. Barnes then grabs a little girl, and points the gun at her head, warning the old man to spill it, or she's next. Elias comes out of a hut. He sees what's going on, screams at Barnes to stop, then punches him in the face. They brawl for a little while until Lt. Wolf shows up. He orders them to stop fighting and to burn down the village. Chris, having witnessed the whole thing and clearly ashamed of his own inaction, looks off in the distance and sees Bunny, Junior, and two other guys raping a villager. He runs over, and tells them to stop and helps her to her feet. They call him a fairy and a cocksucker, because real men drink beer and rape Vietnamese villagers.
Back at the camp, Elias reports the murder Barnes committed to the base leader, a captain. The captain says a full investigation will occur and if an "unauthorized killing" took place, there will be court martials. In the meantime, however, it's business as usual. Chris gives another voiceover, I mean, writes another letter to a rando family member, and says the business between Elias and Barnes has led to a "Civil War" at camp, between those who back Elias and those who back Barnes.
We see Junior and Bunny discussing pot. Bunny thinks pot is a plot by the gooks to make us all pacifists, and he don't play that. In case this is too subtle, Oliver Stone would like you to know that people who smoke pot are good and nice and people who don't are rapists and murderers.
Suddenly, a report comes in from up ahead that a huge platoon of Viet Cong are heading this way for an attack. There's too many of them to fight. They jump into action, working together despite their differences. Elias has a plan to take Chris and two other soldiers...to like some other part of the jungle, where they will attack the Viet Cong from the side, and provide a distraction maybe?, while the others get out. I didn't really get it, because it was only four of them, and I'm not watching it again. Anyway. Barnes thinks that idea's just swell, and in the meantime, the rest of them will continue their retreat. Elias says don't forget to pick us up before you leave. Barnes says totally, don't sweat it, what possible motive would I have to do otherwise?
The battle commences, and nearly everyone has retreated at this point. Chris and the other two get separated from Elias, and stumble across Barnes. Chris tells Barnes they lost Elias. Barnes says he'll find him, then orders Chris and the others to retreat. He goes further into the jungle. About halfway back to the camp, Chris, feeling suspicious, tells the other two to go without him, then heads back into the jungle. Barnes discovers Elias in a clearing. They both raise their guns. Elias sees that it's Barnes, smiles, and lowers his gun. Barnes doesn't lower his. Too late, Elias sees the look in his eyes. Barnes fires, three times in the chest. Elias falls over dead.
Barnes heads back to camp and runs into Chris, going the other way. He tells Chris that Elias is dead, and they need to retreat now. The Viet Cong got him. Chris doesn't look like he believes him, but goes with him anyway. They run back to the base, and get on the last chopper. While they're in the air, Elias comes running through the jungle, the Viet Cong right on his heels. Barnes is stunned, and so am I, since he was shot three times in the fucking chest. What is this, Friday the 13th? Chris wants to land and pick him up, but Barnes, looking totally worried, says it's too dangerous. Sure enough, the Viet Cong quickly finish Elias off.
At the new base, Chris is talking to King and some of the other pot smoking good guys, voicing his suspicion about Elias's death, and trying to get them to "do something" about Barnes. Barnes suddenly appears, having been spying on them. He taunts them all, says the pot smoking has killed their brain cells, then says none of them would ever have the guts to try anything with him. Chris attacks him at that moments, swinging wildly, but Barnes quickly gets the upperhand and beats the hell out of him. He points his gun at Chris's head, until King softly says there's no way he'd get away with this kill and would go to jail for sure. Barnes sees the wisdom in that, and lowers his weapon. He walks out.
Finally, it's the Third Act, so there's one final battle to be had. The soldiers are nervous and jittery, feeling something in the air, the quiet before the storm. Junior's foot is swelled up and infected. He says he can't walk, and needs to be E-vac'd out of there. Barnes threatens to put a scorpion down his pants if he doesn't walk. The orders come down from the brass that King's tour of duty is up, and he can leave on the next chopper. He and Chris hug it out, then King takes off. O'Neill begs Barnes to let him on the same chopper, just to go back to the mainland for three days R & R. Barnes refuses. O'Neill is despondent. He has a feeling, you see. That something wicked this way comes.
King flies away on the chopper and I fully expected a Henry Blake scenario where the chopper blows up or something, but apparently he made hit home safely as the movie never mentions King again. Good for you, King.
Later that night, a "surprise" ambush. A surprise to them, but not to us, as there are only about twenty minutes left, and this needs to end on a big battle scene. It's nighttime, and the fighting and shooting go on for awhile. The Viet Cong have the numbers, and are killing our friends left and right. It's a pretty detailed and effects-laden and fantastic set piece, though I'm mostly bored at this point. O'Neill hides in a foxhole under several dead bodies and manages not to get spotted. That's probably the most memorable part. Finally, towards the end, we see the military brass decide to just cut their losses and carpet-bomb the whole area, killing Viet Cong and US soldiers alike. Back on the battlefield, Barnes stumbles across Chris, who's bloodied and panting in a hole, and jumps on him. He raises his machete, ready to slam it into Chris's chest. Chris screams "NO!", but not in that horribly cheesy way Darth Vader did, and suddenly the whole sky lights up with fire. Fade to black
It's daytime now. Chris is still alive. He staggers to his feet and limps along. There are hundreds of bodies everywhere, littering the landscape. Magically, he stumbles across Barnes who is also still alive, but severely wounded. He barks out an order for a medic. Chris just stares at him for a moment, then shoots him dead. The rescue soldiers rush in right then (of course), and ask Chris is he's okay, etc. They carry him out onto a stretcher and then into a helicopter. As they take off, Chris surveys the devastation and begins to weep. It's a very powerful moment that could only be ruined if there's yet another voiceover where Chris spews some badly written Maya Angelou-esq glurge lamenting the human condition. Oh, here we go:
"I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy. We fought ourselves. The enemy was in us. The war was over for me now, but it will always be there, for the rest of my days. Just as I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for the possession of my soul. There are times since, I've felt like a child, born of these two fathers. But be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach others what we know, and to try with the rest of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life".
And then Oliver Stone starts masturbating.
Review: I was harder on it during the summary there than I planned to be. The truth is, there are a lot of powerful and compelling moments in this, but also a lot of vapid moralizing and telling not showing. And the pro-pot propaganda was just embarrassing. I don't know, maybe in the eighties no one had done this kind of movie about Vietnam before. Maybe it was shocking or whatever. But really, the setting happened to be Vietnam, but this story could've been about any group of people anywhere, struggling to remain good under adverse conditions. That's a worthy topic for a movie, I just wish it had been told better. Also, Charlie Sheen? Not a good actor. Not noticeably terrible or anything, but certainly can't hold a candle to Berenger or Dafoe or even Kevin Dillon, and it shows. One of the easiest things to do as an actor is yell and scream and act really mad, but Sheen can't even really put much teeth behind that. Very weak.
Stars: Three out of five.
No.
Next up, "A Night at the Opera" and then "Easy Rider". Also, I want props for not making a single Charlie Sheen joke.
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