Platoon (1986) First Time Watching - Anger & Heartbreak at War's Reality | Movie Reaction and Review
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ย. 2024
- Prepare for an intense dive into the Vietnam War as Cameron and Isaiah experience the gritty realism of 'Platoon' on Max for the first time! Join us as we navigate through the raw emotions, powerful performances, and the internal battles that define this Oscar-winning film.
If you felt impacted by our reaction like we did with the movie, feel free to show some love by hitting the like button, sharing our reaction, and subscribing to our channel. What scene from 'Platoon' left you speechless? Drop a comment below and if you want, delve deeper into conversation about this cinematic masterpiece!
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Oliver Stone directed this movie...Oliver is a Vietnam veteran....think about this....he put his experiences from Vietnam into this movie...Chris Taylor is Oliver Stone
Yup a lot of stuff in the film happened to Oliver Stone.
He shot at some villagers feet like that (the "dance mf" scene) and was ashamed of it afterwards, to the point of crying when they filmed that scene. Also the end battle was close to reality (in terms of death count), although Stone didn't fire a shot in it, he just took cover as low as he could, because he knew there's going to be airstrike right in the middle of it. Stone also won a medal for heroism, it's depicted in the ambush scene where Taylor throws a grenade and saves some people. Stone did something similar, and got the medal for that.
Barnes and Elias were based on real people (the real Barnes was also scarred from the face, the real Elias died in a suspected friendly fire incident shortly after Stone left Vietnam), also some others like King were based on real people.
Just horrific. None of them were themselves. We’d all like to think we know what we’d do in those circumstances, but there’s no way we can say. Like I said in my comment they were just dropped into HELL. The things they saw and experienced, changed them forever. Most of them never got back to the people they once were. Just heartbreaking. And no one can ever say why. 😓Stone deserved the accolades he got for this film.
Ken Burns Vietnam was more encompassing but it was a doc
I know it must of been some scary shit ☹️
He got in serious trouble for this movie though..way exaggerated,he was almost sued and issued an apology. He was barely if at all in actual combat,I used to think the same thing.
For me, Platoon is the most honest war movie ever made. An infrantryman's view of a contraversial war. The movie hits the mark in so many areas, but the ensemble cast's performance is outstanding. The blending of the visuals with Samuel Barber's 'Adagio for Strings' was an incredibly original decision that drove home the contrast of worlds. Heaven and hell, basically. One of my top 10 films all time, regardless of genre
Rambo: First blood is up there for me as well. It could have basically been called Platoon 2: Homecoming
for me its ace ventura 2 when nature calls, that comes the closest on how it was in vietnam during the war.
@@2684dennis No way!! Everybody knows that "Animal House" is the best war movie ever made. 🤪
That's true because they don't show the more sordid sides of WW2. If the rumors are true we killed a lot of Germans in our POW camps, but history is always written by the victors.
No. That movie is a caricature of a Vietnam vet experience.
Wow, Cam&Zay, you chose an INTENSE war film to watch! One that you will never forget.
This film won Best Director for Oliver Stone and Best Picture at the Academy Awards. Very well made film.
Saving Private Ryan didn't win Best Picture...further proof the life isn't fair.
Tom Berenger (Barnes) and Willem DaFoe (Elias) were both nominated for Best Supporting Actor as well.
That Elias scene kills me every time. Yes, Tom B. acting throughout the movie was top tier A+. At the same time, William D. being chased down, running for his life, left to die, that one scene was A+. Two great actors showcasing their acting skills was phenomenal.
Fun Fact: We worked with Ho Chi Minh during WWII to fight the Japanese occupation. Ho Chi Minh had hoped for Independence from France. After WWII France returned to their colony (Vietnam). The U.S turned their backs on Minh in favor of France. The rest is history.
Ho Chi Minh kept a picture of George Washington on the wall in his office. He admired the anti-colonial rebel leader.
I love it when I watch a reaction video and actually get a genuine reaction after the movie ends instead of the "and that was the movie and thank you with watching" without getting a true reaction. Thank you guys.
Being a combat veteran of the Vietnam War this was our movie. This is also the unit that I fought with the 25th Infantry. This movie took place in Cu Chi province. Cu Chi was famous for its tunnel complex. The most nerve-wracking job in our unit was being a tunnel rat. A very well depicted movie...
Did you notice that the US interpreter during the village destruction scene is an early Johnny Depp ?
And that he was shot in the ambush scene that followed, and was carried to the medic by Taylor.
This was one place where the US should never have stepped foot. Great reaction to a wonderful film about the great mistake of the US.
I can't remember if you two have watched apocalypse now yet?
Martin sheen starred as our protagonist in the epic award winning Vietnam war movie apocalypse now. An even better movie.
Then his son Charlie starred as our protagonist in the award winning Vietnam war movie platoon.
We are far overdue the next Sheen from staring as our protagonist in a new award winning Vietnam war movie.
Someone check on Emilios kids. Somethings wrong.
The fact that Barnes walks into the dugout, punks all of Elias’s squad, and Taylor’s the only one who takes a swing is infuriating. Great scene though.
Edit: We Were Soldiers is another great Nam movie
He is a sergeant.
So many amazing actors giving amazing performances in this one...top of the list being Tom Berenger as Barnes and Willem Dafoe as Elias AND Keith David as King. Charlie Sheen never gave a better performance...I think...and this was the first movie that Dale Dye appeared in, as well as being one of the consultants on the military aspects of the film...and only the 2nd appearance of John C McGinley (who played Dr Cox on Scrubs).
Easy to miss, but a 19-year old Johnny Depp has two scenes as the platoon's translator. The guy who stabs himself in the leg at the end is Corey Glover, who later became famous as the lead singer in the band "Living Color" and is Donald Glover's father
Let's not forget about Forest Whitaker also in in this movie in a Small role.
This movie isn't about one good sergeant and one evil sergeant, it's about how war makes every man choose if he's going to be good or evil, with Charlie Sheen as the one who has to make the choice. The casting was intentional -- at the time, the actor who played the evil sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger) was known for playing the lead in romantic comedies, and the actor who played the good sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) was known for playing villains. When Oliver Stone cast them against type, he was trying to suggest an evil sergeant who might have once started off normal underneath his scars, and a good sergeant who is capable of evil, because the movie isn't about those two men, but rather what war does to every man.
Barnes isn't evil, he's just willing to do whatever it takes to help his platoon survive despite them making dumb mistakes like sleeping on an ambush (you can sleep in shifts in a night defensive position, but when setting an ambush everyone must stay awake), picking up booby traps and walking into an ambush while humming on heroin (sergeant Warren at the mission station).
He is also frustrated by his superiors expecting him to pussyfoot around in pursuit of hearts and minds while fighting a ruthless, determined enemy. He shoots the old woman in the village because she disdains Americans' attempts at interrogation and displays open disrespect. If she did that to VC or NVA they would kill her, her whole family and half the village, and Barnes is expected to compete with that using nothing but talk.
@@mimikurtz2162 the guys reacting to this movie hating on banres and how they would kill him is hilarious to me, they hate him because they don't understand in war a lot of things not seen as normal are normal in a way. war in it's self is human nature and at the same time isn't
@@r32guy85 Altruistic intent and brutal instincts are the nightmare of the human condition.
"We fought ourselves. The enemy was in us." Otherwise expressed as, "The horror, the horror!"
@@mimikurtz2162 No one told Barnes to go be apart of an unjust invasion…
@@stevonwhite8933 Do you really think he just woke up at home one morning and thought, "I want to go to Vietnam and fight in a war"?
As a professional soldier he WAS ordered to go.
Inhaling pot smoke from a barrel was called shotgunning. No waste of smoke. And you get a big ass rush.
The Colonel at the end was Dale Dye who played Colonel Sink in Band Of Brothers. Oliver Stone serves in VietNam and had first hand knowledge when he created the movie. Oliver Stone was the Commander in the Bunker that was destroyed by the Suicide Bomber. The behind the scenes are wild about this movie.
Dale Dye started as a consultant to help make Hollywood war movies more realistic and that turned into an acting career. He also played General Y in Oliver Stone's 'JFK' and an aide to General George Marshall in 'Saving Private Ryan'
Yeah, Colonel Sink of "Damned if I don't like old Joe Dominguez's rancid-ass beans better" fame. Hard to believe the same man wanted Easy to go on a useless 2nd patrol in Haguenau.
Charlie was in a lot of top movies before his TV career. You should watch Wall Street which he stars in with his Dad Martin Sheen and Michael Douglas who is Gordon Gekko and his famous line "Greed is good".
Another movie to react to is Good Morning Vietnam wirh Robin Williams. He won rhe Golden Globe for Best Actor for rhat movie
P.S. The translator in this movie was a very young Johnny Depp.
Don't forget Forest Whitaker, Tony Todd, Keith David, Francisco Quinn, and Dale Dye
Thanks for your reactions. I can not put into words you'll understand, Unless you have been there. We may have left that conflict, but it has & will never leave me. 🙏
Now you can understand the scene in "The Naked Gun", where Frank and Jane come out of the theater, laughing, and you see the movie was "Platoon".
I remember when this came out . War veterans spoke about how this was the most realistic story they had scene of Vietnam. It didn’t show or glorify the American military as “Saviors” .. especially in Vietnam. It demonstrated that truest aspect of how you can be the villain in the story.
And it makes sense as Oliver Stone the director was in Vietnam.
And I've heard some Vietnam vets say it was bullshit and not like this at all. I wasn't in Vietnam, but I suspect different guys had far different experiences depending on where in Vietnam they were, and what their unit did. I mean, the Mai Lai massacre in 68 was a real thing. So there's no doubt some bad shit happened.
I think many people were not ready to see US soldiers in a negative light . You mentioned the My Lai Massacre, remember Hugh Thompson who reported it , was maligned , ostracized and essentially became a social pariah for doing the human and right thing.
There was some horrible things that happen. I think this movie demonstrates how war can effect individuals . Be it showing courage of character like Elias, the amplification of a truly awful individual let loose in an environment where their savagery is allowed , like Barnes. And Chris , who is caught in the middle.
I'm a navy veteran 1977-82, the Vietnam 🇻🇳 War was over for about a year and a half when I enlisted. Many American citizens dispised American service men because of various events that happened in Nam and the anti-war movement in the States. Getting on my civilian plane in my dress uniform heading to my ship in Maine, this female steward said in a loud voice while looking straight at me..." Look everyone...we got a baby killer onboard". This was how civilians treated us years after the war ended. A much different political and social attitude than we now have. Now everyone is told to thank a veteran for his service. This was NOT the case for Nam vets. And these guys would be fighting in the jungle and just 24 hours later receive their honorable discharge, no transitional period. They would often go straight from combat to chopper to base and then discharge papers and a ride home all in 24 hours. Thank you for you service now get the f&ck out. Vietnam vets got the shaft, no parades, no thank yous. America just wanted to forget the whole thing along with our corrupt politicians like Nixion.
What I want to know from you is how do you feel about all of this as a human being? Were you saddened that you had to shoot people? Are you saddened by it now? I never hear these details from someone saying they were a vet.
Sad as it is there’s a reason people felt that way. My Lai. Among others.
@@VicMikesvideodiary your sick for responding this way.
@@VicMikesvideodiary you should do your research on the war.
@@BungBooce I'm sick for wanting a soulful/human response? You're sick for trying to put a wall up on an issue that should shake any human to the core, of literally being forced to kill someone.
Prior to Platoon you really only had 2 type of war movie:
1) Where no matter what, the USA was the victor through sheer MORAL fortitude. That no matter how bad things got, the US soldier was going to maintain this sense of "moral fiber that can't be broken".
2) OR where things were so bad, that it became more or less about how "tough and determined" the US solider was at all times, even when they were on the verge of mental breaking, they still won through "sheer determination not to be defeated".
Platoon was (not the first, but...) the BEST presentation that the US soldier was JUST LIKE THE SOCIETY THAT THEY CAME FROM. They had good people, bad people, lazy people, smart/dumb people, and a sense of brotherly love for those around them while at the same time a sense of demonizing the enemy.... UNTIL they got caught in the actual "feelings" of war as time went by. The desire to "kill the enemy" in general, morphs into a sense of "desire to kill out of anger and vengeance". Where innocence is torn away piece by piece, until you become someone like "Bunny" where they are get the thrill of how GOOD you become at killing the enemy. Barnes becomes so "liberated" by the sense of can't be killed after being shot, and yet at the same time Barnes also became "hardened" to risks/death because that sense of "when it is your time to die, you are going to die no matter what".
And then you get Ellies, who somehow is able to hold onto his humanity despite everything he's gone through. But that grasp of his own humanity makes him appear to be "judgemental" of everyone else, which generates a sense of resentment. Where those who are constantly being "judged" by him, start to feel as if they are being WRONGFULLY accused. Which results in those who feel this resentment start to turn against Ellies as being "soft", despite all the evidence that he is one of the best soldiers you have in your ranks. But his ability in the field doesn't matter, they still view him as "soft" and therefore "weak" when pressure is really applied.
Platoon is possibly one of the BEST war-movies ever made, because you can completely ignore the political reasons for why people are fighting.... and instead focus on the SOCIAL interaction in different situations that will bring out both the best and worst in people, regardless of the generation.
Tom Berenger nailed it. I met him once and he couldn't have been nicer. He was in some pretty amazing movies such as Looking For Mr. Goodbar, The Big Chill, Eddie And The Cruisers, The Substitute. He and Charlie Sheen reunited for the Comedy Major League and Major League 2. I almost forgot, he was in a really good Action Thriller called Dogs! Of War with Christopher Walken.
As for other good Vietnam War films, the first two to be released after the fact were Go Tell The Spartans and The Boys In Company C were both released in 1977 because Hollywood made only one Vietnam War film while it was happening and that was the John Wayne film The Green Berets. In 1978, two Oscar Winning films about the Vietnam War were released, The Deer Hunter starring Robert DeNiro , John Savage and Christopher Walken won 2 Oscars. Christopher Walken won Best Supporting Actor and the film won Best Picture. The other movie was Coming Home, which earned Jon Voight his Best Actor award. In 1979 , Apocalypse Now was released. In 1987, arguably one of Stanley Kubrick's finest films, Full Metal Jacket was released. In 2002, We Were Soldiers starring Mel Gibson was released. Coincidentally, in Lethal Weapon, Danny Glover tells Mel Gibson about how Glover's buddy saved Glover's life in La Drang Valley, the same place where We Were Soldiers was set.
You'll have to excuse my long comments but I literally have Aspergers and I have an extensive knowledge of movies. A friend of mine, who just passed away was friends with Quentin Tarantino and my friend told me that the only people who know as much about movies are Tarantino and Peter Bogdanovich. My friend's name was Gary Kent and he was Tarantino's favorite stuntman. It was believed that Brad Pitt's character in Once Upon A Time In Hollywood was based on Gary but he wasn't.
Apocalypse now was directed by Coppola, right?
"Sometimes you have to shoot a child." - my Uncle Bobby, somberly saying this in conversation about tough choices in combat. He had to go through horrible moral conflicts (like so many other vets had to) and this was just one example. Little kids would be given a grenade and told how to set it off and then they'd be sent into a US position (basecamp, outpost, etc) and would blow themselves up along with whatever US soldiers they walked up to because the kids were so young they didn't know what they were about to do. My uncle had to make that choice to kill a little kid in that same situation and it's haunted him his entire life. These are the things that broke soldiers emotionally and psychologically and it's how so many of them could do the brutal, terrible acts you'd see in films like this. "War is Hell."
Jesus. That's crazy and horrific but also such an example of what depravity war can drive people to. So sad when innocent are involved.
" American freedom and democracy ".
Maybe that's going to sound flippant, but how about not putting yourself in a situation where you might shoot kids to begin with? One grows tired of this discourse about how bad US soldiers had it, they weren't the ones being under military occupation, having their houses burned down and their families killed.
What would you do to defend your home, family and village from invaders?
War isn't Hell. Hell isn't full of innocent people.
War is. War is far worse than Hell.
Barnes is not pure evil. He is a pseudo villain but, he does deserve the criticism and some of the hate he evokes. He represents the men who sell their souls not only to win the war but to protect the men they serve with, they do evil things for what they believe is the greater good believing that the trade off leaves the world in a better place. The payoff obviously being the end of the war. While it's hard to see it, he is in some way one of the many victims of the war as he will no doubt be left soulless and permanently damaged and if he is not killed while serving he will certainly come home to a world where he will be left lifeless and live a miserable existence and in the end likely taking his own life. I am not excusing anything he does but there is more to his bad deeds than the emotional response they elicit.
-Signed a Marine Corps Veteran
21:00
You boys are young and have a happy life, you can't even imagine what is it to be at war and how people act there. It's easy to speak about morality and dignity while sitting in a comfortable chair at home.
Read or watch youtube about "My Lai massacre" in Son My village and you will learn a lot how it's actually was there and how and most importantly why some people can act so brutal.
New subscriber just wanted to say I love your guys' reactions, you have good comprehension of what you're watching while also providing great genuine reactions. Keep it up 👍
The point that you missed about the village was that there were children, women, and old men, but no young men, teen aged to mid 30's. That means that ALL of the missing men were Viet Cong insurgents, probably the ones from the bunker complex that they just left, and probably the ones who tortured and butchered Manny. The village was the support base for those VC.
North Vietnamese Army soldiers you mean, not insurgents. Fighting for their homeland against brutal foreign invaders who installed a dictator. And even if they did support them, so? That doesn’t justify anything they did.
My dad was a corpsman (medic) in the Marines in Khe Sanh 1966 - 1967. He said this was the most realistic portrayal of what it was like. I saw this in the theater with him, tough experience.
Wow
You two need to sit and watch and try and learn something
Instead you insist on blathering on about something you clearly don’t understand
Excellence commentary here boys. Y’all did good. You can support your country’s troops, but also expect a certain code of conduct to be upheld.
To all who served & sacrificed their lives for our country & freedoms. I salute you.
Not to mention their victims.
"Our country". I don't think Vietnam was attacking the U.S.
America may have fought lots of honorable wars, but Vietnam is not one of them. In Vietnam, America was the aggressor.
Okay, you've finally gotten into Oliver Stone territory. I hope you watch more of his movies because he's made some great ones: Wall Street (1987), Born on the Fourth of July (1989), The Doors (1991), and Natural Born Killers (1994) to name a few.
JFK.
Oliver Stone did an incredible directing job on Platoon.
Vietnam was one big clustef**k.
All wars are clusterf**ks
All wars are politician's wars
And all wars are fought by the poor, not by the people who start them.
There'd be no wars if the leaders had to fight them.
I love that Oliver Stone told the truth that war is not heroic and pretty. There's no glory sending kids into a meat grinder ( Unless it make's you money)
Yes I'm antiwar.
Great observations about this classic movie
Best line: "We've been kicking everyone else's ass for so long, it's about time we got ours kicked"
And yes America ARE the bad guys, always have been. We slaughtered 1,000,000 Iraqis for absolutely no reason. (besides the oil). Remember WMDs?
Amen.
Just out of curiosity, who do you think were the good guys in WW2 and who were the bad guys?
@@johnnyboy6707 I think they were all bad. but there were degrees of bad considering America stole quite a few Nazis after ww2 to work on their rocket and space programs. (Operation Paperclip). Henry Ford was a Nazi sympathizer. We threw Japanese people into interment caps after Pearl Harbor. Yes Nazi are bad, but we weren't far behind. And it's wasn't the United States who won ww2, it was mostly Russia who sacrificed 27,000,000 of their people to fight Hitler's war machine...and won.
Now we're giving Ukrainian Nazis money and weapons to fight the Russians. America is now giving MORE money to Israel to slaughter thousands of Palestinians in Gaza. Next will be Iran conflict, from there Taiwan because China is financially taking over the world. They own us. Us hegemony is dying and so is the dollar. We're all in for a rough ride thanks to the US Government who is run by Oligarchs and do as they are paid to do. WE ARE THE TERRORISTS.
If you guys are interested in this topic, a good documentary is Ken Burns Vietnam, I think its 5 parts and came out a few years ago. You asked "what would of happened if we won", you'd have a North and South Vietnam now with the South being aligned with us, going out on a limb here but with a weakened North I wonder if China would have annexed it.
This war was too difficult, they couldn't tell who the enemies or allies were with the Viet Cong everywhere in the South. And the Vietnamese really just wanted to be in charge of their own country, many argue it was more about nationalism than communism. The South weren't boy scouts either. You had the French there before us, my dad was there 67-68 and talks about how some elderly Vietnamese knew some French. The GIs who knew nothing about history were confused why they'd know French.
One MAJOR thing to remember, its easy to look back now and be like "wtf were we doing" but remember, EVERYTHING at that time was viewed through the reality of the cold war, all the conflicts were proxies of the cold war. Soviets actually lost some guys in this war because they were supporting them with advisors and equipment and so forth (kinda like us now with Ukraine.........).
The American military had previously been supplying weapons and providing guerilla tactics training to the South Vietnamese to destabilise French rule to help the spread of the American empire, they miscalculated and ended up declaring war as the natives weren’t following the script. So ironically many of the horrific deaths suffered by American troops was due to these guerillia techniques and American bought weapons .The official narratives we were taught about most conflicts are complete horseshit
Many of today's conflicts, Syria and Ukraine as examples, remain proxies of a cold war one could argue never ended.
26:28 I think that was Jonny Depp ! Forgot whether he was in this film, but pretty sure he was. Did you guys realise that the crazy dude who stoved in the kids head is Kevin Dillon who starred in "The Blob"?
Yes, that was Johnny Depp.
I never thought about it before watching with you guys, but I just realized Barnes, who you both noted had "2 more lives left" was killed by Charlie Sheen with 3 bullets, which would've burned those extras. Maybe it's a stretch, but I prefer to think it's a dark Easter egg. Awesome reaction guys, this is a rough one meant to make you question all sort of things. 👍🏻
That's a great observation that I never noticed before
My grandfather was in WW2 …he never spoke of it too much. But he was a medic who doubled as a camp guard when needed. He said that treating captives well made them cooperate with the rules much better. One time he told me that the prisoners got turkey on Thanksgiving when the soldiers didn’t. He told me that was one of many small differences that made us better than the other side.
Funny, because thanksgiving is purely an American thing. No one celebrates it in Europe.
‘I would be…” “I would be like…” You would be shitting your pants crying for mama. 1st Bn. 7th Inf. 3rd ID. Hoorah! Rock of the Marne. Disabled Combat Veteran. Be well young men.
Went to see Platoon at theater with my dad. Just before the fight with the napalm, someone had walked in with hot dog (or hot dogs) loaded with enough sauerkraut you could smell it all over the theater. So, strong sauerkraut smell + people being napalmed = smell-o-vision.
The tunnels would have sections where water was allowed to gather. The water acted as a buffer in case tear gas was dropped in. Also, everything needed to be treated as trapped. Te Viet Cong would use everything they could as traps. One favorite would be to take the C-Ration cans, nail them to trees after making a hole for a tripwire, pull the pin on a grenade while dropping it into the can and stretching it across the path. Not only are you getting double shrapnel, the food remnants from the rusting can means tetanus and other diseases from rotting food remnants.
true stories:
"We Were Soldiers" (2002)
"Flags of Our Fathers" (2007)
"Black Hawk Down" (2001)
"Gettysburg" (1993)
"Rough Riders" (1997)
"American Sniper" (2014)
I have a great uncle who was in Vietnam (in the same type of job and situation as many of the main characters in this film) and this movie absolutely wrecked him. Apparently at the time it was the first widely recognized and mainstream movie to show the absolute brutality and senselessness of that war, and to this day he maintains it is the most realistic depiction of what he, his fellow soldiers, their opponents, and the innocents caught in the middle experienced during that awful chapter of history.
"Full Metal Jacket" came out shortly after and held that conflict up to scrutiny in its own, more artistic way, and many movies that highlighted the barbarism and nihilistic absurdity of the Vietnam War followed, but Platoon was was a resounding, watershed event that laid bare the ugly side of war (and that war in particular) which up until that point had been obscured with the "good guys vs. bad guys" John Wayne and Lee Marvin fantasies that Hollywood was peddling.
Director Oliver Stone also did born on the 4th of July, another Vietnam movie that hits home
They war not fighting for your country, they were fighting for your Government.
Wake up time all wars are like this.
Tom Berenger (Sgt. Barnes) is in a really great movie where he actually plays the good guy (sort of, lol) called, "The Substitute" (1996). You two should definitely check that one out!
@11:14 Yes, that's pot. It's called shotgunning. @13:19 The Viet Cong and NVA reportedly could track US troops by the smells of cigarettes, hamburgers and deodorant. @13:35 Venomous insects and reptiles plus tigers cost a lot of servicemen their lives.@18:50 Google My Lai ( me lie). @39:50 That's a self-inflicted wound. He's hoping to get sent to a hospital/home.
Barnes was the most realistic. In a situation like that or similar, most people will do whatever they have to - or rely on someone like him - on order to get things done. I think even he wanted to die at a few points in the film... but that sense of keeping the machine going and in effect keeping himself and his men alive is what helped him rationalize it. When he says "I am reality," I think unfortunately he's right. Most things of the world are of his character, seeing everything as zero sum and excusing their callousness on anger, heartbreak, fear, you name it. He is in the Christian sense the "natural man."
My Lai was the worst publicized massacre committed by US soldiers against civilians in modern times, around 400-500 men, women and children were murdered, and women and children were gang raped. Only 1 soldier was convicted for this as stupid as that sounds, and Nixon commuted his sentence so he served 3 1/2 years house arrest.
Knowing that a massacre this huge was committed by american soldiers we can imagine how many smaller murders were committed by them. The villagers were really stuck between a rock and a hard place, the americans didn’t trust them and they had to help the vc whether they wanted to or not, the vc would kill them faster than they americans. Basically, hold on to to food and weapons for us and keep your mouths shut or else, then the americans show up wanting to know where the stuff came from or else. What a nightmare for these people.
You need to research the brutality of the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army. Then you'll understand, not necessarily agree nor like, what you've seen in the film. It was an unpopular war, with an enemy who that was nobody and everybody at the same time. The farmer by day was a Viet Cong fighter at night, that child who looked so cute in the day would kill you at night, and often in the day. America didn't lose this war, we walked away in January 1973, the country didn't fall to the Communist until April1975. The South Vietnamese lost the war. In war, there are no good and no bad. How do you kill your enemy and be good about it. Gen. Sherman famously said "War is hell.", he was right. You have no idea how barbaric a boy between the ages of 18-24 can be when the goal is to report back the "body count" after your mission. It was a war when patrols were ordered to kill everything that moves in a village. So you even kill the animals and include them in the "body count." Your tour was 12 months, 13 if you were a Marine. All you wanted to do was stay alive those 12 months and get back to the world in one piece.
Every time I see a reaction I can’t get over how ppl don’t get the village scene. The village was VC. It’s where the men from the bunker disappeared. The rice, weapons, black pagamas
I was hoping it would come. Half way through and I can see the bristling genuine hate for Barnes. I worried the two of you wouldn't see the actor behind the brute. But half way through, the pause came to acknowledge the performance, the actor. Not just a great performance, but one of the best performances I ever witnessed in a movie (and I've seen hundreds of all genres) I walked out of the screening blown by the movie itself but the burning gaze of Barnes was the primary image that stayed with me. Towering Masterclass.
You two need to educate yourselves about the reasons for our involvement in this conflict - both good & bad!
I served in the Marines back in the day but this is my favorite military movie. It’s a bit disturbing at times. 👏👏 good reaction guys. Great movie.
Check out Marlon Brando starring in the 1990 movie "The Freshman". I think you'd enjoy it.
4:27 "Don't drink water, you'll cramp up." Uh what?
12:49 The water in the tunnel was a trick they used to keep enemies from just flooding the whole tunnel system with gas, like the trap on a drain pipe.
Happy Veterans Day to anyone who served, or has family that served. On my mother's side, they were all girls except one, and his age fell between wars. On my father's side, he and all my uncles served: my dad in the US Navy (Quartermaster on the USS Wisconsin in WW2), my uncle George (US Army in WWII), my uncle John (USAF in WWII), and my uncle Winfield (WWII, Korea, and Vietnam).
Hey I "get it" but it always "kills" me when I hear young people who have probably never even been in a real fist fight moralize about how superior and humanely they would behave in combat. No offense.
It's about human nature... good vs evil.....we all have Elias and Barnes within us.
Tom Beringer is a very good actor, but in this movie he's a piece of s***! He's in a series of movies called Sniper which he's a good guy!
You guys miss the fact that in Viet Nam you didn't know which of the " peaceful "villagers were just that or if they were Viet Cong
What happened if the USA didn’t step up to the south Vietnamese Army? Would communism had taken over much of South East Asia like it did in Russia and China?
Remember they are fighting a enemy that was nowhere and everywhere they didn't know who was friend or foe. Listen the VC and NVA where no better when it came to civilians. Notice he used an AK to shoot Barnes not a M16
My 2 favorite Oliver Stone movies are U turn And natural born killers. But if you want to see Charlie Sheen in another series, maybe try the boy's next door.
Remember when watching this, that these were children forced into these situatuions. I believe the draft was between 18-35. What also is imortant to think about when whitnessing the horrors commited here, is the level of fear and helplessness that drives these boys to act this way. The men around you may be monsters but you need their trust in order to stay alive.
Elias and Barnes are the parts of every human, the good and the bad....its which one you choose
Guys for so long platoon was my favorite war movie. But you have to see the new all quiet on the western front. Simply amazing. Uts from the german view and a real tear jerker
Thanks, Cameron! Thanks, Isaiah! 🪖 Oliver Stone is a great director... be sure to check out others from him like THE DOORS (1991), NATURAL BORN KILLERS (1994), SNOWDEN (2016) and one of his best JFK (1991).
JFK is monumental. Maybe the best cast of any film. Gary Oldman is incredible as Lee Harvey Oswald.
@@conchfritters01 Yes, indeed. 🍻
The 60th anniversary of the assassination is less than 2 weeks away. That would be the time to watch JFK.
Guys, react or just watch the music video "wrong side of heaven" by Five fingers death punch to see the price these men paid.
I love how Stone depicts Barnes and Elijah fighting over the soul of Chris and other new recruits. This is first part of Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy after Comes: Born on the 4th of July (1989) and Heaven and Earth (1993). Amazing films in their own right. Also: Casualties of War (1989) with Sean Penn and Michael J. Fox is powerful Vietnam war film as is Hamburger Hill (1987) With Dylan McDermott and Don Cheadle.
Guys, do yourselves a huge favour and watch Apocalypse Now (1979). It is a surreal Viet War masterpiece of cinema directed by Coppola, with a classic appearance by Marlon Brando, also Martin Sheen, Charlie's dad, and Robert Duval among others. It really captures the mental space of insurgency type conflict. I say this as a 70s vet of another war, the South African border war which lasted decades. Love your reactions. Strength. xxx
Being based on the novella, "Heart of Darkness" which is based on conflict in another continent in a different century, Apocalypse Now goes much deeper than just Vietnam. The original title says it all and it's quite an amazing film on so many levels.
@@zatoichi1 Well said. Apocalypse Now is a masterpiece, but it's an adaptation that speaks more to conflict, morality, and the limits of the human psyche in general and less to the specific circumstances of the Vietnam War.
From not bathing, their body odor would travel way farther than cigarette smell.
You have to watch both commentaries with Oliver Stone and Dale Dye. One liberal one conservative. They both understood what could drive a young man insane fighting in a hopeless war.
You guys are sounding a lot like the protesters at the time.
Thank you!
Did you guys recognize actors such as Johnny Depp (of Donnie Brasco), Keith David (from The Thing), Forest Whitaker (of Black Panther), Tony Todd (of Candyman), and John C. McGinley (of Identity)? They were all so much younger back then, but all became Hollywood superstars, some Oscar winners.
Yeah, when I see Keith David I immediately think of The Thing
Another great Oliver Stone movie, JFK (1991)
You guys need to watch We We’re Soldiers next please 🙏🏼
Too few reaction channels watch this Oscar winning movie.
One of my favorite films, I was deeply effected by this movie a long time after watching it. I still believe that Tom Berenger should have won best actor for his role. I had only seen Tom in the Big Chill and was stunned when I realized he was the same person playing Barnes. A bit of makeup to create scars but the rest of it is pure acting. A classic film, masterfully done.
A backstory column was mentioned about barns face. It was a barbed wire incident in a battle he had but was never in the movie because it happens yrs ago.
Excellent reaction! - Now check out Walter Hill's 'Southern Comfort'.
You guys need to do We were soldiers, based on a true story, starring Mel Gibson
It was a disastrous war in many ways.. The villagers, they often collaborated with VC guerrilas. There would be no enemies in the area to be found, yet US soldiers died constantly to landmines and occasional snipers. The villagers would often know about the location of the landmines, they would work on the fields every day and not walk into them. Because they knew where it was, but wouldn't say. But US soldiers walked into them. It created bitterness and paranoia, which caused US soldiers to brutalize villages. Things like My Lai incident, most famously, but it happened a lot. Villagers would then join VC after being brutalized, even if they didn't support VC originally. But you never knew, so it created paranoia and hatred.
Problem was, Vietnamese didn't really want Americans there. They wanted to be communist. US soldiers couldn't win the hearts & minds of civilians. Nobody smiled at them, nobody waved at them. US soldiers thought they are helping and doing the heroic thing, but they were rejected by civilians. It created disappointment and bitterness.
Also because US military used drafting, lot of the soldiers didn't really want to be there. There was lot of "fragging" towards the end of the war, US soldiers killing their unpopular officers.
One notices a number of parallels with America's own war of independence.
Platoon was an encapsulation of the entire war, the good the bad and the ugly. Few nam vets experienced all the extremes in this movie. But all that shit went on, and goes on in war.
25:44 Those are not mortars, they are artillery rounds being fired from miles away
Great reactions, Cameron & Isaiah 😢😢
Aside from my favorite war movies: The Great Escape, A Bridge Too Far, The Eagle Has Landed, Where Eagles Dare, Saving Private Ryan, Midway(70's version) then comes Platoon(very hard to watch) Please react to the above mentioned movies, all well done! Thank you!
I saw this movie theatrically a week before I started boot camp. It’s an incredible movie with outstanding performances all around.
3:25 It really strikes me how Sheen arrives in Vietnam at the start of the movie as this young, fresh-faced, starry-eyed rookie and by the end, he’s just this broken shell of his former self.
What happened with the sleeping on shifts part in the beginning was that at the end of your shift, you wake the next guy up, but when Junior fell asleep, he couldn't wake the next man up, so because of Junior, the whole squad was left sleeping, unguarded. Junior tried to place the blame, and his buddies jumped in to cover is butt, so he got away with it.
Good content! One of the bet films relating to war in U.S. cinema history. You guys should consider reacting to "Born On The Fourth of July"
(1989); and "JFK" (1991). Both films also made by Oliver Stone (a Vietnam veteran). Stone Refers to Platoon/Born the 4th/JFK to be his Vietnam trilogy.
... Good stuff.
... Also check out the movie "Wall Street" (1987)... another Stone/Sheen collaboration.
He's not writing in a Journal, he's writing his grandma.
I'd like to thank the veterans for their service and to Cam's grandfathers as well. My late dad was in the Flying Tigers in China during WWII, so Veteran's Day means a lot to me as well. Phenomenal reaction guys. This movie is really brutal and disturbing. The sad part of this war was how the veterans were treated when they came back. They were shunned, spit at, basically treated like shyte.
Got any thoughts about Hamas?
I saw this in theaters when I was 12 and it scarred me. I still can barely make it through the village massacre scene.
All I know with 23 years in the military is that if you 2 had been drafted you probably would have come home in body bags. I'm not saying that's right. Not everyone is made to serve in the military. I don't believe in a draft. It should be for volunteers only. I can't imagine forcing 75 draftees through boot camp today. 90 percent of today's young people are too soft, uneducated and too attached to their cell phones. If you think this is bad check the history of the My Lai incident in Vietnam. Thank God we still have men and women who volunteer to serve.
I saw this one on the big screen when it came out. A full theater, and the overwhelming silence of EVERYONE, as we exited, was intense in its own right. It took me days to get my head right afterward.
you guys shouldnt watch and comment on movies like this, its way above your levels that you can handle.
The truly frightening thing is that Oliver Stone based the script and the movie on his own experiences in Vietnam. The tagline for this movie was "The first casualty of war is innocence", and Stone's story conveys this in horrific detail.
Just subscribed because I find you both so immersed in the subject and so articulate in expressing your personal feelings and reactions. I look forward to watching many more!
Hey. You should check out "Casualities of War" as well. Michael J. Fox & Sean Penn are in it and it's a sad one as well, with a similar tone as Platoon. "Apocalypse now" is another masterpiece you could put on your list.