Genre: Action / Drama / War Director(s): Oliver Stone Release Date: 01 January 1986 Movie rating: 8.1

The first Vietnam war movie ever to be written and directed by a Vietnam veteran, “Platoon” received a total of eight Academy Award nominations, winning four of them, including “best film” and “best director”. The screenplay was based on director and writer Oliver Stone’s personal experiences during the Vietnam War, and tells the story of an idealistic young patriot Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who drops out of college to volunteer for the war. However, soon upon arriving to Vietnam Taylor witnesses a number of atrocities committed by the American troops and becomes disillusioned about America’s causes for war, as well as the behavior of idealized US troops. He sees sadists and psychopaths all around him, the leading one being Sergeant Barnes (Tom Berenger). Sergeant Barnes butts heads with Sergeant Elias (Willem Dafoe) who threatens to report Barnes for killing a civilian woman in cold blood. Barnes then uses the first opportunity to kill Elias and claim it was done by the enemy troops, but Taylor sees through his lies and confronts him. Their fight is stopped by an enemy air raid, but the following day Taylor confronts Barnes again and this time he shoots him with his military rifle after Barnes taunts him that he doesn’t have the guts to pull the trigger. Being wounded in the combat for the second time, Taylor is sent back home for good, and as he is flown away on a helicopter he breaks down and weeps while looking over the scattered remains of both his military colleagues and of Vietnamese troops.

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