Platoon (1986)

There are 8 replies in this Thread which has previously been viewed 12,282 times. The latest Post () was by DukePilgrim.

Participate now!

Don’t have an account yet? Register yourself now and be a part of our community!

  • PLATOON


    DIRECTED BY OLVIER STONE
    PRODUCED BY JOHN DAILY/ DEREK GIBSON
    ORION PICTURES CORPORATION/ METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER



    Information From IMDb


    Plot Summary
    Chris Taylor is a young, naive American who gives up college and volunteers for combat in Vietnam. Upon arrival, he quickly discovers that his presence is quite nonessential, and is considered insignificant to the other soldiers, as he has not fought for as long as the rest of them and felt the effects of combat. Chris has two non-commissioned officers, the ill-tempered and indestructible Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes and the more pleasant and cooperative Sergeant Elias Grodin. A line is drawn between the two NCOs and a number of men in the platoon when an illegal killing occurs during a village raid. As the war continues, Chris himself draws towards psychological meltdown. And as he struggles for survival, he soon realizes he is fighting two battles, the conflict with the enemy and the conflict between the men within his platoon. Written by Jeremy Thomson


    Full Cast
    Keith David ... King
    Forest Whitaker ... Big Harold
    Francesco Quinn ... Rhah
    Kevin Dillon ... Bunny
    John C. McGinley ... Sgt. O'Neill
    Reggie Johnson ... Junior
    Mark Moses ... Lt. Wolfe
    Corey Glover ... Francis
    Johnny Depp ... Lerner
    Chris Pedersen ... Crawford
    Bob Orwig ... Gardner
    Corkey Ford ... Manny
    David Neidorf ... Tex
    Tom Berenger ... Sgt. Barnes
    Willem Dafoe ... Sgt. Elias
    Charlie Sheen ... Chris
    Richard Edson ... Sal
    Tony Todd ... Warren
    Kevin Eshelman ... Morehouse
    Terry McIlvain ... Ace (as James Terry McIlvain)
    J. Adam Glover ... Sanderson
    Ivan Kane ... Tony
    Paul Sanchez ... Doc
    Dale Dye ... Captain Harris
    Peter Hicks ... Parker
    Basile Achara ... Flash
    Steve Barredo ... Fu Sheng
    Chris Castillejo ... Rodriguez
    Andrew B. Clark ... Tubbs
    Bernardo Manalili ... Village Chief
    Than Rogers ... Village Chief's Wife
    Li Thi Van ... Village Chief's Daughter
    Clarisa Ortacio ... Old Woman
    Romy Sevilla ... One-Legged Man
    Mathew Westfall ... Terrified Soldier
    Nick Nicholson ... Mechanized Soldier #1 (as Nick Nickelson)
    Warren McLean ... Mechanized Soldier #2
    Li Mai Thao ... Rape Victim
    Ron Barracks ... Medic
    H. Gordon Boos ... Soldier with Mohawk Haircut (uncredited)
    Mark Ebenhoch ... Ebenhoch (uncredited)
    Robert 'Rock' Galotti ... Huffmeister (uncredited)
    Eric Hahn ... Soldier (uncredited)
    Oliver Stone ... Alpha Company Major in Bunker (uncredited)
    Henry Strzalkowski ... Bit Part (uncredited)


    Writing Credits
    Oliver Stone


    Produced
    John Daly .... executive producer
    Derek Gibson .... executive producer
    A. Kitman Ho .... co-producer
    Arnold Kopelson .... producer


    Original Music
    Georges Delerue


    Cinematography
    Robert Richardson (director of photography)


    Trivia
    The role of Chris was originally offered to Kyle MacLachlan, who turned it down.


    Keanu Reeves turned down the role of Pvt. Chris Taylor.


    Oliver Stone considered casting Johnny Depp for the lead role of Pvt. Chris Taylor but Depp was too young for the part and unknown at the time. Stone said that Depp would someday become a huge star and is thus one of the first filmmakers who introduced Johnny Depp to Hollywood.


    Originally Charlie Sheen was turned down for the main role of Chris because it was felt he was too young for the part. His older brother Emilio Estevez was offered the part but the project fell apart due to financial problems. Two years later the project was given the go-ahead, but Estevez had already committed to other projects. Charlie Sheen again read for the part and won it.


    The part of Sergeant Barnes was originally offered to Kevin Costner.


    The movie is narrated by Charlie Sheen, eerily echoing his father Martin Sheen's narration of another Vietnam war movie, Apocalypse Now (1979), also filmed extensively on location in the Philippines.


    All of the actors had to endure a harsh 14-day boot camp in the Philippines before the shooting of the film commenced. The actors were given military haircuts, were required to stay in character throughout the camp, ate only military rations, were not allowed to shower, slept in the jungle, and even had rotations for night watch.


    Special packs of Marlboro cigarettes were made for the movie on the insistence of Oliver Stone, who wanted the cherry-red color on the pack to more closely match those made during the late 1960s.


    Oliver Stone had an actual RPG fired towards the end. This added to the effect's realism.


    Prior to the scene where Elias' half of the platoon is smoking dope, the actors actually did smoke marijuana. Unfortunately for them, Willem Dafoe reported, by the time the stage was set and they actually filmed, everyone had come off their high and felt awful.


    The final battle in the movie was a recreation of an actual event that was witnessed by technical advisor Dale Dye, who was a combat correspondent with 2nd Btn, 3rd Marines.


    Technical advisor Dale Dye is in a body bag being taken off a truck at the start of the film.


    Several of the actors wrote messages on their helmets worn throughout the movie. Charlie Sheen's helmet reads, "When I die, bury me upside-down, so the world can kiss my ass", while Johnny Depp's simply reads, "Sherilyn", a tribute to Sherilyn Fenn, whom Depp was dating at the time. Mark Moses (Lt. Wolfe) had on his helmet a drawing of MAD magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman with the phrase "What, me worry?" and, according to Tom Berenger, this caused Oliver Stone to laugh hysterically once during filming.


    Another reference to Sherilyn Fenn can be seen on Johnny Depp's guitar in the scene where they are smoking dope: the carved initials S.F.


    In many U.S. military leadership classes, the character of Lt. Wolfe (Mark Moses) is used as an example of how not to behave as a junior officer.


    Based on Oliver Stone's personal experience during the war in Vietnam based on a screenplay he finished around 1976. Numerous studios passed on it until he finally got approval and starting filming in early 1986.


    Toward the end of the film, when the reinforcements arrive after the battle, Rhah (Francesco Quinn) reaches into a dead VC's breast pocket, pulls something out, and keeps it, while looking around nervously. The item he is removing is heroin, which VC soldiers used as a painkiller. Many heroin-addicted US troops did the same thing. The scene implies that Rhah's mystical quality is a symptom of a larger problem.


    In a TV interview, Charlie Sheen credited Keith David with saving his life. While shooting in an open-doored Huey gunship, the helicopter banked too hard and Sheen was thrown towards - and would have gone through - the open door. David grabbed him by the back and pulled him back in.


    Tom Berenger's lifelike scar required three hours of makeup work every day of shooting.


    Prior to going after Elias (Willem Dafoe), Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger) threatens to "Article 15" Taylor unless they return to the base camp. Article 15 is a section of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that allows superiors to mete out non-judicial punishment under certain conditions. Specifically, it spells out U.S. military punishment for serious insubordination.


    The cast and crew arrived in the Philippines in early 1986, almost simultaneous to the beginning of the Edsa Revolution of 1986 that toppled Ferdinand Marcos. Willem Dafoe said that a day or two after he arrived in Manila, he awoke to see a column of tanks rolling down the streets.


    The movie was filmed nearly sequentially; as soon as their characters were killed in the movie, the actors returned home. The emotion that Charlie Sheen shows in the closing helicopter scene was largely real, knowing that he was finally going home.


    At one point, a character is warned not to drink from a river because he might get malaria. During filming, Willem Dafoe got thirsty and drank water from a river, not knowing that a dead pig was not far upstream. He was sick for 24 hours, but not with malaria.


    After Taylor (Charlie Sheen) takes his revenge on Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), the other platoon arrives to look for survivors and someone asks Taylor if he's okay. As he does, Taylor quickly drops a grenade. The script didn't call for it, but Sheen thought his character would be suicidal at that point in the movie, and director Oliver Stone liked it and kept it in the movie.


    The movie poster depicting Elias with his hands in the air, is a recreation of a 1968 photograph by Art Greenspon. This photograph was recognized as the 13th greatest military photograph in a Sept 2000 issue of the Army/Navy/AF Time.


    Val Kilmer auditioned for the production but was not offered a role.


    With this movie, Oliver Stone became the first Vietnam veteran to direct a major motion picture about the Vietnam War. He was already the first Vietnam veteran to win an Oscar (for Midnight Express (1978), a distinction which he still holds, and became with this picture the first Vietnam vet to win an Oscar for Best Director. As of 2010 he is the last veteran of any war to win an Oscar for Best Director, other than Clint Eastwood who served in the Army during the Korean War, but never went to Korea.


    Oliver Stone suggested that the cast and crew camp out on location while filming an early scene on a hill they could only reach by hiking in. Everyone agreed to that at first, but that night, after hiking up the hill and finishing their day's work, everyone ran back down to the valley.


    Johnny Depp says when he left for the Philippines for this movie at the age of 22, it was his first time out of the United States.


    During the opening credits, Big Harold (Forest Whitaker) falls and rolls down a hill. Whitaker claims it was a real, unintentional fall.


    Tom Berenger lost 28 pounds during the pre-filming boot camp. Filming for the movie began the day after the camp ended; Oliver Stone didn't want the actors to lose their edge.


    Technical advisor Dale Dye was also the door-gunner on one of the Hueys after the church ambush. He made sure that his visor was down to disguise the identity of the gunner, as Dye also played Captain Harris.


    Technical advisor Dale Dye's wife Katherine was the Vietnamese woman who was thrown into a mass-grave by two American soldiers after the Final Battle.


    According to his DVD commentary, the scene in which Chris saves a Vietnamese girl from being raped on is based on an incident in which Oliver Stone intervened in an assault on a villager in Nam.


    The dog tags which make up the double O's in the poster for the film are those of Willem Dafoe's character Sgt. Elias Grodin. His service number is 3365664125.


    In 2007, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #86 Greatest Movie of All Time.


    Drawn from Oliver Stone's own personal experiences as an Army combat infantryman in Vietnam. He wrote it quickly upon his return from action and partly to counter the false depiction of war he had seen in John Wayne's The Green Berets (1968).


    Banned in Vietnam because of its depiction of the Vietnamese.


    One of three Vietnam-based films released within 9 months of each other in 1986-87. The other two were Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket (1987) and John Irvin's Hamburger Hill (1987).


    Before shooting commenced, all of the actors had to undergo an intensive two-week basic training under the supervision of military adviser Dale Dye. Oliver Stone's intention was not to have the men bond and act as one unit but to deprive them of sleep and make them utterly exhausted, so that they would be burnt out and therefore in character.


    Johnny Depp recalled that during one particularly stressful scene, he was so intimidated by Oliver Stone's aggressive behavior that he came close to vomiting. Stone still insisted on a second take.


    Some of the Vietnamese cast members were actually tourists who were vacationing in the Philippines at the time of filming.


    Aside from editing the film (and winning an Oscar for her work), Claire Simpson also suggested to Oliver Stone that he use Samuel Barber's "Adagio for Strings" over some of the more emotional footage.


    The US Department of Defense declined to co-operate in the making of the film. Military equipment was loaned from the Filippino armed forces.


    Because of the film's low budget, cinematographer Robert Richardson had to cut corners. Come the release of the DVD, however, he was able to tweak the hues in the ways he had only imagined before.


    By the end of production, it only took half an hour to apply Tom Berenger's facial scarring. Berenger would only wear it when necessary as it ended up hurting his face.


    Oliver Stone originally was looking for a Native American actor to play Sergeant Elias. When he failed to do so, he cast Willem Dafoe, a Dutch-American actor, instead. Several scenes with Elias reflect Stone's original idea of the Native American spirit embodying Elias.


    Shot in only 54 days.


    Most of the voices heard over the radios are provided by technical advisor Dale Dye.


    The paper pinned to Manny's (Corkey Ford's) dead body is a South Vietnam safe conduct pass. These papers were dropped en masse over South Vietnam in an unsuccessful attempt to get the VC and NVA to surrender. The enemy troops are showing their contempt for the Americans by attaching the pass to Manny's corpse.


    First part of Oliver Stone's Vietnam-trilogy. The other two are Heaven & Earth (1993) and Born on the Fourth of July (1989). Many of the Platoon (1986) actors have bit parts in "Born."


    According to Oliver Stone, he intentionally cast Tom Berenger and Willem Dafoe against type (Berenger, who played the ruthless, sadistic Sgt. Barnes, was mostly famous at that point for playing good guys, while Dafoe, who had primarily played villains up until then, played the heroic, compassionate Sgt. Elias). The casting worked, and both men received Oscar nominations for their work.


    The film is "Dedicated to the men who fought and died in the Vietnam War".


    First-time credited film role for Francesco Quinn, Bob Orwig, Reggie Johnson, Mark Moses, Corey Glover, Paul Sanchez, Ivan Kane, and several of the other actors in the film.


    Director Oliver Stone at one point wanted Mickey Rourke for Sgt. Barnes and Nick Nolte as the experienced Sgt. Elias. Both were offered the parts, and both turned it down.


    Director Oliver Stone remembered that while casting the movie, Kris Kristofferson was thrown around by some as a potential 'Sgt. Elias', since he was in real-life close to the character in type, and had been an Airborne Ranger. Stone, however, was not keen, as Kristofferson was "way too old" and had not had a hit movie since Convoy (1978).


    Jeff Bridges was considered for Sgt. Elias.


    At one point Junior and several other black soldiers are talking about the situation in the platoon. Sgt. Warren remarks that they should trust Barnes, while Junior retorts that Warren's ideas of a good leader may be contaminated by the 'shit' he 'shoots up'. This is a reference to Sgt. Warren's addiction to morphine, which was left ambiguous in the final movie.


    Oliver Stone wrote the first draft of Platoon in 1971 and sent it to Jim Morrison in hopes that he would play the part Charlie Sheen would ultimately play. Morrison had the script on him when he was found dead in Paris. It is unknown whether he would have been cast had he lived, however Stone eventually made The Doors (1991) based on Morrison's life.


    According to Charlie Sheen, he kissed the ground when he returned home from filming in the Philippines.


    Oliver Stone wanted James Woods, the star of his previous film Salvador (1986), to have a role in the film. Remembering the hectic, grueling shoot in Mexico, Woods turned Stone down. Although Woods was later interested in being in JFK (1991), he would not work with Stone again until Nixon (1995), nine years later.


    All the lower ranking soldiers carry the M-16A1 rifle, only Sgt. Elias and SSgt. Barnes carry the Colt 653P standing in for the XM177 (albeit poorly).


    Director Cameo
    Oliver Stone An officer at the bunker that gets destroyed by a suicide runner.


    Pockets of fake blood intended to simulate gunshot wounds to Elias's body during the famous "arm-raising" scene malfunctioned and never exploded. However, Willem Dafoe's performance in that take was considered so impressive that the scene was left as is.


    Goofs
    Boom mic visible: In right upper corner, when they are "emptying the shitter."


    Boom mic visible: Visible above King's head when he lights his cigarette.


    Continuity: Sgt. Barnes' T-shirt when confronted by Chris at the end.


    Anachronisms: Set in 1967, features Bunny listening to Merle Haggard's "Okie from Muskogee," not released until 1969.


    Factual errors: Taylor arrives in Vietnam wearing the unit insignia of the 25th Infantry Division. Low-ranking enlisted infantry replacements did not arrive in Vietnam with unit assignments, or insignia, but were assigned to line units as required.


    Continuity: When the platoon finds the bunker complex, the Lieutenant sends Taylor and Washington out to guard the flank. Washington has a pack of Marlboros stuck in his helmet. Once he reaches his position, it is a pack of Kools in his helmet.


    Anachronisms: The "drug den" uses miniature Christmas lights. They only had 7-watt c-7 Christmas lights in 1968.


    Revealing mistakes: When the men are wrestling through the foliage in a rainstorm near the beginning, the rain sounds like it has an echo, as if it were inside a stage.


    Continuity: At the bunker complex, Sergeant Elias goes into the tunnels. In one shot he goes through some water, but in the following shots he is dry.


    Continuity: The position of the bandoliers worn by King in the goodbye scene with Chris just before the climactic battle.


    Revealing mistakes: When the booby trapped device (box with Vietcong maps) in the bunker explodes, it rips off the arms of one of the soldiers. When he stumbles out of the bunker and dies, his hands are clearly visible hanging out under his T-shirt.


    Anachronisms: Staff Sergeant Barnes and Sergeant Elias both carry Cold Steel brand knives, which were not manufactured until the 1980s.


    Continuity: After the last battle Chris has obvious injuries to the face and arms, skin burns etc. As he is stretchered out, his face and arms no longer have the blackened marks


    Anachronisms: In the last battle, as well as in the patrol in the very beginning, Captain Harris was seen wearing the nylon Y-shaped suspenders, which was not issued until the 1970s.


    Continuity: In the third battle (Ambushed by VC), the machine gunner (Morehouse) was hit spot on by an artillery shell from friendly fire and was shattered into pieces by the explosion. When the troops evacuated, his quite complete body, although charred, was the first one taken out.


    Continuity: During the last battle, Sergeant O'Neill hides behind a dead body. As he pulls the body over him, the body's eyes are closed but when we see O'Neill peeking out, the eyes are open.


    Continuity: The position of Barnes' dead body after the tank approaches.


    Crew or equipment visible: Exploding pack under Barnes' T-shirt when Taylor shoots him.


    Anachronisms: When the soldiers are celebrating in the tent early in the film, they are drinking Budweiser from two-piece stay-tab cans with UPC symbols. Container companies introduced the two-piece can in 1974, the stay-tab in 1975 and the UPC symbol in 1978. Budweiser introduced the can style used in the movie in 1981.


    Anachronisms: Staff Sergeant Barnes and Sergeant Elias use the Colt Model 653 which was not available until 1973.


    Continuity: When leaving the burning village, SSG. Barnes' left eye is black. When he and Sgt. Elias return to base camp and have a discussion with the Captain, Barnes' right eye is black.


    Continuity: After the first firefight, the blood "M" the medic puts on Private Gardner's forehead disappears.


    Continuity: When Bunny is in the tent talking to Junior, he opens his beer can with a "church key" (can opener). But when Lieutenant Wolfe walks in and Bunny bites a piece out of the can, it has a pop-top and shows no sign of having been opened with a "church key".


    Continuity: The length on the soldier's cigar when they are in the bunker looking at the Viet Cong maps, right before the booby trap blows.


    Revealing mistakes: As Chris is firing at the villagers feet in the hut, no fired shell casings are being ejected from the rifle although we hear it firing.


    Revealing mistakes: While the troop are in the VC village, interrogating the villagers, searching for weapons, etc; it is obvious that their rifle bayonets are rubber.


    Revealing mistakes: When the M60 machine gun is being fired the rounds on the ammo belt are clearly blanks; the ends of the cartridges are crimped and there are no bullets.


    Factual errors: In the attack on the camp, we see two NVA/VC soldiers acting as suicide bombers (one falls and explodes, the other makes it into the communication bunker before blowing up). In the script, these two men are identified as sappers. NVA and VC Sappers were specially trained combat engineers/reconnaissance commandos who used stealth to infiltrate a camp's defenses and take out strategic targets, such as barbed wire obstacles or bunkers, with explosives before the main attack. Although there were indeed reports of Viet Cong and North Vietnamese troops using suicide bombers during the war, sappers were never used as suicide bombers because they were considered too valuable to expend.


    Factual errors: The uniformed VC/NVA troops are often depicted wearing steel helmets; steel helmets were only worn by NVA anti-aircraft troops protecting base camps in Cambodia, Laos, and North Vietnam. The VC/NVA troops ought to be wearing either floppy "boonie-hats" or the standard NVA sun helmet.


    Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): At one point, a character is warned not to drink from a river because he might get malaria. While drinking the water could cause any number of diseases, malaria is not one of them, as it can only be transmitted by insect bite.


    Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The characters in the movie are in the Army, but on the cover, the dog tags that make up the two "O"s in Platoon read USMC.


    Continuity: SPOILER: We see a view from the helicopter of Elias running as he gets shot by the Vietcong, and during this shot he raises his arms up, but when it goes to a close up shot of him, his arms are suddenly down and then raised up as he dies.


    Continuity: SPOILER: During the scene when Bunny beats the villager to death with his shotgun, Seargent O'Neill's cigarette varies from long to short each time it cuts back to him.


    Continuity: SPOILER: After the final battle Francis stabs himself in the right leg. He has a bandage on his left leg when seen on the evacuation helicopter.


    Plot holes: SPOILER: Even if the body of Elias was recovered and it was discovered he had been shot with 5.56mm ammunition it still wouldn't prove he was shot by an American soldier, as North Vietnamese soldiers often used captured American weapons in battle.


    Memorable Quotes



    Filming Locations
    Luzon, Philippines

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited once, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Platoon is a 1986 American war film written and directed by Oliver Stone,
    starring Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe, and Charlie Sheen.


    It is the first film of a trilogy of Vietnam War films directed by Stone,
    followed by Born on the Fourth of July (1989) and Heaven & Earth (1993).


    Stone wrote the screenplay based upon his experiences as a U.S. infantryman in Vietnam,
    to counter the vision of the war portrayed in John Wayne's The Green Berets.


    Platoon was the first Hollywood film to be written and directed by a veteran of the Vietnam War.


    Platoon won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1986;
    it also won Best Director for Oliver Stone, as well as
    Best Sound Mixing and Best Film Editing. In 1998,
    the American Film Institute placed Platoon at #83 in their "AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies" poll



    User Review

    red_core (Silicon Valley, CA)


    I have profiled this significant war movie without seeing it,
    so I throw the thread open to our members to post thier own reviews.

    Best Wishes
    Keith
    London- England

    Edited once, last by ethanedwards ().

  • Keith, first of all, thank you for continuing to inject new topics. Secondly, you should view this one. I'm not a fan of Oliver Stone, but this is a pretty good movie. It contains some controversial scenes and varying performances but is worth sitting through.


    I'm one of the lucky ones - I'm a vet of that era but never got stationed out of Fort Sam in San Antonio. My friends who were over there, still don't discuss it in detail.


    We deal in lead, friend.

  • I loathe Oliver Stone and other than "Platoon", have never watched any of his movies.

    As for the movie itself, I've seen worse but have also seen thousands better. Being a liberal, Stone naturally painted the American soldiers in Vietnam in the worst possible light. I was there in '66-'67 and many of the bad things he showed had not yet begun to take hold, such as the heavy drug usage, etc.

    My personal favorite of the Vietnam War films is "Hamburger Hill". It's a darn good movie, with great performances by all. I suppose you could characterize it as anti-war also, as it shows the absolute stupidity of ordering American soldiers to take a heavily-defended hill from the NVA, which they do but with great casualties, and then the idiot leaders in either Saigon or Washington decide to pull our boys off the hill and give it right back to the NVA. For no good reason at all. Which meant all those American boys died for nothing.

    De gustibus non est disputandum

  • I think Platoon is a very good movie and probably the best work Oliver Stone has done. However, I too like Hamburger Hill better and also think Full Metal Jacket was better and my favorite of the three. If there's one movie about Vietnam that I would love to see someone make, it's about the Siege of Khe Sanh. In fact, a couple of years ago, my late brother, who was a Marine at Khe Sanh, heard someone was trying to do one but, I've never heard anymore about it.

  • My favorite Vietnam movie has always been Burt Lancaster's Go Tell the Spartans. It portrays a realistic view of the war, without all the anti-American histrionics of Oliver Stone's movie. Great acting by Burt, Marc Singer, Evan Kim, and a young Jonathan Goldsmith, years before he became The Most Interesting Man in the World.


    Quote

    "I am not intoxicated - yet." McLintock!

  • Grim viewing and certainly not a movie you would want to watch more than once. The problem with most of Stone's movies is that he tries to hammer his point of view down the throat of the audience and has the audacity to indignantly describe all his movies as the truth and the whole truth.