Platoon Film Analysis

"Platoon" is a movie from 1986 depicting the war that happened in Vietnam between 1955 and 1975. The movie takes place in 1967 and is also the semi-autobiographical account of the director, Oliver Stone's, real experience while fighting in the Vietnam War. It went on to be the first ever Hollywood film to be written and directed by a Vietnam War veteran. It was a big hit with viewers and most critics. Produced for only $6 million, it went on to gross $138 million worldwide. Platoon won four academy awards for Best Picture, director, film editing, and one for sound mixing. It was shot in the Philippines, though the pentagon refused to support the film, it was shot in total sequence and it only took 54 days to film. Platoon begins with a quote

He had Dale Dye brought in, a war technical adviser. Platoon was the very first use of Dye’s boot camp method; to train actors to accurately portray and play soldiers. The actors do not play your typical war stereotypes either. No one is from Brooklyn, Italian, a hick, a ladies man and so on. Instead, they are written as individuals with a changing character development that can be seen throughout the movie. With Oliver Stone and Dale Dye working together, the film is a tutorial on the hard life in Vietnam, from the soldiers to the civilians living there. Dye made sure the details were correct. The gear is all accurate and the language, behavior and the life of the men were all realistic of the time. Philippine government had given them enough equipment to give the film some scale. Some real facts (or as told by Stone) depicted in the movie are as

Fragging is the killing a fellow soldier, usually an officer. The practice got its name from the fragmentation grenades often used for this purpose. It was shown happening a few times in the movie. Sgt. Barnes (Berenger) shoots Sgt. Elias (DaFoe) and later, Taylor (Sheen) kills Barnes for revenge. Because in the first instance, Elias was killed for attempting to have Barnes court marshaled for killing a civilian Vietnamese woman. So when Barnes and Elias were alone in the jungle, Barnes shot Elias, leaving him to die in the jungle. After the last battle, Charlie Sheens character Taylor, comes across Barnes shot and wounded on the ground. He knew that Barnes had killed Elias, so Taylor shoots Barnes for revenge. These two incidences of fragging portrayed a very real part of soldier life in Vietnam and show the fact that dangers did not only come from the enemy. In 1970, more than 200 incidents of fragging were reported. Taylor himself is wounded in the last battle and at the end of the movie, we hear him thinking on his way out in a helicopter. He