Even now, it is impossible to talk about Platoon without at least mentioning Apocalypse Now. Though both films feature the Vietnam War, Platoon takes a more "realistic" approach. Apocalypse Now is a great film, but it is hard to take the overly-theatrical moments as anything more than big, action movie set pieces. It's more of a story while Platoon is more of a narrative.
For the time, Platoon was a low budget film which, in my mind, makes it even more remarkable. In the included commentary, Stone shares a lot of the behind-the-scenes stories, including venturing to the Philippines for shooting and casting Vietnamese actors. All was done to get the film as close as possible to Stone's own memories of the war. These personal war stories also make up a decent chunk of his commentary track. It leads to some confusion (sometimes it is hard to tell what he's talking about), but incredibly interesting.
To help bring his story to life on the screen, Stone cast a relatively unknown group of actors that included names like Willem Dafoe, Tom Berenger, Johnny Depp and Keith David. Platoon was also a break-out role for Charlie Sheen as Chris Taylor, a naïve kid who gives up college in order to volunteer to serve in Vietnam. Taylor's arrival is not met with excitement. He's immediately marginalized by his peers due to his "green" status and seen as unnecessary.
Eventually, Taylor becomes stuck between two officers, Staff Sergeant Barnes (Berenger) and Sergeant Grodin (Dafoe). Both have different approaches and viewpoints, which come into play after the platoon encounters a village suspected of housing enemy troops. Things go awry, resulting in an accidental death, splitting the squad across morally ambiguous lines, leaving Taylor stuck in the middle.
As with every Oliver Stone film, Platoon is regarded with mixed feelings. I've heard it described as everything from "The Greatest War Movie Ever" to guys playing army with popguns. With each viewing, I find myself more on the thin grey line between the two extremes, but tend to lean towards it being one of Stone's best films. There are a few moments that seem a little too surreal to be true, but then again I've never been in a wartime situation, particularly Vietnam, so I don't think I have a lot of room to call "BS" on anything.
My feelings are largely influenced by the amazing cast performances. For the time, the names were relatively well known, but not the superstar headlining names they are today. Sheen's performance is particularly good and gives a great snapshot of what could have been, not what is. His narration is a bit stiff, though it is excusable if you want to go with the explanation that he's becoming increasingly disillusioned with the war.
This is my first time owning Platoon, so I can't say for sure how many of the extras are new to the 25th Anniversary release. I've looked into it, but I'm never completely comfortable going with information from the Internet. Not that it matters; the Blu-ray upgrade is worth the price. Platoon's low shooting budget works against the HD conversion, though with period pieces like this, the lack of super sharp images isn't mandatory. The image quality looks great, though there's a bit of blur and grain. This actually works in the film's favor. It looks like a film should look. With Platoon, it's more about the audio, in particular the ambient jungle sounds. They work alongside the images to help sell the experience.
Stone's commentary is joined by an additional commentary track from military advisor Dale Dye. I've heard tracks from Dye in the past and always enjoy listening to whatever he has to say. Dye's commentary is, in some instances, more interesting to Stones. Not to discredit Stone's commentary - it's still worth listening to - but he can be hard to follow at times. Stone also provides commentary during the deleted scenes. You also see more of Dye in "Dye Training Method."
The longest extra is a three-part production documentary. Each part of the documentary focuses on a different aspect of the film. "Snapshot in Time" provides a background of the era, including the reasons for it and issues surrounding it. The second, "Creating the Nam," focuses on recreating the war on film. Finally, "Raw Wounds" covers reactions to the film, particularly among Vietnam veterans.
All three sections are great, especially the final part, which is joined by two additional vet-focused extras, "One War, Many Stories" and "Preparing of 'Nam." Both are fairly raw and, at least for me, hard to listen to, but are great extras. I'm glad they were included.
Platoon also features two short vignettes, one involving how the name Gordon Gekko grew out of the film's production and another featuring author Philip Caputo's war stories.
Regardless of your feelings towards Oliver Stone and his body of work, it is hard to overlook Platoon. I tend to think of it as Stone's best work and a must-have for any film buff's Blu-ray collection.
