Think Vietnam was your Momma's war?!

I'm going to come straight out and say that I had never seen either of these movies before, so these reviews are going to be my first impressions of both movies. In a few words, both movies can be described as dark, chaotic and violent. There is much more to them, however, than simply "showing Vietnam as it really was" and being kickass action films.

Full Metal Jacket

This movie revolved heavily around its characters. These over-the-top caricatures of stereotypes from the war drove the movie. Starting with Sergeant Hartman (that guy has been milking the same role ever since this movie), each character spits out memorable lines. He had me laughing at his shouting, each one getting funnier. The funny slowed down when Pyle began to change and get more psychotic, however. Pyle was another great character. He was the extremely exaggerated "psycho killer" that the war produced, used to show how the army messed with the minds of the soldiers and turned them against what they were and into cold blooded murderers. His murder and suicide were quite shocking to see, but after seeing what he went through in his "world of shit," it's hard to blame him. My other favorite characters were Animal Lover, who represented the gung-ho soldiers who killed without blinking an eye, and of course the main character, Joker. Joker represented the people that didn't know what to think of the war; he's torn between peace and killing. In the end, he turns into the killer he watched Pyle become, showing that nobody involved in Vietnam was safe from the damage to the psyche it brought.

Regarding historical accuracy and whatnot, this movie took place during the most confusing time of the war, the Tet Offensive. Joker pointed out that they could be attacked on the holiday, but his words were cast aside as nonsense. In the chaos that followed, eventually the US got what they lost back, but at the cost of many men. We saw this through the deaths of Cowboy and 8 Ball, among others.

Overall, this was a fantastic movie. It wasn't preachy with its messages; instead, it just let them be portrayed by the brutality and death shown on screen. This one gets a thumbs up.

Platoon

This movie wasn't as good as Full Metal Jacket. I just simply can't take Charlie Sheen seriously as a soldier, and especially not as a headband wearing, mud covered hero. Personal biases aside, the movie was still top notch. The platoon that Sheen's character Taylor is placed in is broken into two groups, and each one represents two types of soldiers. On one side, there's the soldiers that follow the amazing Willem Dafoe as Sergeant Elias. These soldiers just want to get to the end of their assignment. They party and do as many drugs as they can while not out in the jungle. These guys are the "good guys" who don't really want to kill but instead survive. Elias, their leader, is the Rambo-type action hero who goes off alone to personally take out a bunch of enemies. The other group, which ironically chastises Elias' followers for drug use while they drown in alcohol, is led by Sergeant Barnes, who has some cool scars on his face. He also is a cold-hearted individual who isn't against killing innocent grandmas or children. His followers include Johnny Drama as Bunny, a teenager who gets a thrill out of killing and being able to do whatever he wants, and Dr. Cox as O'Neill, a cowardly suck-up.

These two quarreling groups lead to Taylor saying at the end of the film that the war wasn't between them and Vietnam; the war was with themselves. This is slightly true, as the US was divided during the war just like Taylor's platoon. On one had there were the hippies and the pacifists, chanting to make love, not war, just as Elias' followers were more about getting high and having a good time. On the other hand there were those that felt that communism must be stopped, and if we had to kill every last one of them then by golly we were gonna do it, even if the means weren't ideal. These were Barnes' followers, happy to kill and quick to look the other way if they were told. I liked this way of looking at the war, but it wasn't as effective as it could have been. If you're going to end a movie with a monologue, don't have Charlie Sheen read it.

Overall this movie was really good. I liked seeing a lot of actors before they were big, like Forest Whitaker and Johnny Depp. This was a very dark movie, showing almost all of the bad parts of the war: critters in the forest, night paranoia, drug use, murdering innocent civilians, almost everyone dies. It left me with a bitter taste, just as it should have. It gets the thumbs up.

Both of these movies showed the dark side of the war. Neither showed anything positive about it. Except for regaining a destroyed town in Full Metal Jacket, there weren't any victories in either movie. No flags were raised, no cheers were shouted, and most characters in both movies died. Both ended with the main character killing someone while standing over them. They both showed innocent young men evolve into emotionless shells. I think that Full Metal Jacket did a better job of showing the war as it truly was, because the ending was so bleak. The Joker, who had previously joked around in every situation and looked awkward with a gun, had transformed into the robotic killing machine that they wanted him to be. Seeing him break (specifically his face when he kills the woman sniper) had the biggest impact of anything in either movie, even more than Pyle killing himself. The darkness shown in these movies isn't just shown to say that Vietnam sucked and we lost the war; it was shown to emphasize that war has no upside. Nobody involved in a war can leave it and return to how they were.