Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986) is one of the many classic films released during the 1970s and 1980s depicting the Vietnam War (other films of that era include Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter). The film was a major critical and financial success. It was a major player at that years Academy Awards, winning the awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Sound, and Best Film Editing. It was also nominated that year for Best Supporting Actor for Tom Berenger, Best Supporting Actor for Willem Dafoe, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Cinematography. The Rotten Tomatoes critics consensus perfectly sums up critics' opinion of the film: "Informed by director Oliver Stone's personal experiences in Vietnam, Platoon foregoes easy sermonizing in favor of a harrowing, ground-level view of war, bolstered by no-holds-barred performances from Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe." Against a budget of merely $6 million, it made back $138.5 million at the North American Box Office.
Platoon is a bona fide classic and one of the most important films ever to be made about the Vietnam War. Roger Ebert, who called Platoon the best film of 1986 and one of the best of the decade, said it best: "A film that says - as the Vietnam Memorial in Washington says - that before you can make any vast, sweeping statements about Vietnam, you have to begin by understanding the bottom line, which is that a lot of people went over there and got killed, dead, and that is what the war meant for them."
Stone wrote Platoon with his own experiences in the war in mind. In fact, he based Charlie Sheen's character on himself. The film tells the story of Sheen's character called Chris Taylor, who leaves his university to enlist in Vietnam. He goes to the war with the notion that is fighting for America and being patriotic and morally righteous. But his idealism fades. There is a tremendous amount of infighting within his squad, which ends up pitting the squad against each other -- on top of the enemy. At its core, Platoon is an anti-war movie. War is not seen as fun. It is seen as Hell.
