Hamburger Hill

I haven't seen it safecracker, but if it's up there with saving private ryan it just made it onto my top ten to see. Incidentally, I didn't like platoon at all, it looked too "staged" like it was made on a redevelopment site or something similar.

Mind you I am one enormously critical film and T.V. watcher.

Platoon is just bad acting lol It did mention Brandon, MS though and that is where I 1st lived when I moved south heh.

Not a big fan of "Platoon" and Vincent Canby takes a swipe at that film in his review of "Hamburger Hill" in the NY Times (you have to be registered to used this link):

NY TIMES VINCENT CANBY REVIEW OF HAMBURGER HILL

That film and "Tigerland" could be bookends for all the overblown, under nourished dubious successes that has been filmed (including "Apocalypse Now" and "Full Metal Jacket") as the only two films of real thought challenging inspiration about the war. "Platoon" came off for me as cartoonish and the characters might as well have had little bubbles above their heads with the dialogue set in. "Full Metal Jacket" is anti-climactic after the first extremely effective story -- after that, it's ho-hum with the potted palms and obvious painted up old ruins that was suppose to be Vietnam but looked more like London after the an A bomb attack.

"Hamburger Hill" looks real, the characters seem real and the pace of the story is unflagging. "Tigerland" ditto.

"Tigerland" was also notable as it really kicked off Colin Farrel's career:

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0170691/

I get a kick of of the first "user" review. Ill-focused, indeed -- it was suppose to be. It explores the chaos of war before anyone has even hit the battlfield. What a dolt.

Now that I've read LW's reply I think I've got Platoon mixed up with Full metal jacket, I think iwas FMJ that looked like it had been shot in a slum clearance area.

"Platoon" was too "exotic jungle," "FMJ" was too staged to look as surreal as I think Kubrick wanted. The potted palms look like they were blowtorched and then set down every twenty feet. The whole thing needed more "Dr. Strangelove" and less "Barry Lyndon." Even the ruins looked artistic with graffitti-like signage that looked like a bunch of local schoolchildren were hired to paint them. The storyline, such as it was, was incoherant and nothing like "The Short Timers" although the dialogue was snappy and had a feeling of reality to it, it was really just too poetic to be effective (the same thing happened with Ray Bradbury's script for "Moby Dick," a bunch of swabbies spouting out Bradbury prose). The first story is one of the best short anti-war films ever made, the rest almost a trek into drek except that even second-rate Kubrick is still watchable (he made too many great films and when he fell short of the mark, it stood out like a sore thumb).

Hamburger Hill..boku dinky dow!



Sorry that ya'al feel that way `bout Platoon folks, as a combat vet who did two tours in the `Nam, I can tell ya'al that Stone's Platoon looks sa'me-sa'me as S.E. Asia--like polaroid brownie shots! The lingo, jungle`utes, the "boonies" "hootches," early AM patrols on the paddy dikes, tracers, bloopers, RPGs', 1000 Yard Stare, "Puff" tunnel rats, etc., it brings it on home! It's those other flix that are short rounds (duds). In short, this one "Gets Some!"


Hamburger Hill bites bigtime..those "doggies" look like they've been smokin' some bad stuff. This film rates a Special Courts Martial


Full Metal Jacket: This one died without honor!


Saving Private Ryan: Spielberg was out of his element on this one! Those combat scenes--beach landing, firing 30.cal. Thompson into the tank, firefight at the farm, etc. doesn't fly!
My suggestion for Mr. Spielberg is to spend time with a filmmaker who'd seen action/combat--Oliver Stone!


Born On The 4th Of July: This one passes muster, w/ Honor; no short rounds here! Again, as in Platoon, merciless 130' in the shade, triple canopy jungle, `villes, hamlets, elephant grass, rice paddies, cosmoline, .60s',.81s',.50 cal., 1000 klicks, Con Thien, the Z, Gio Linh, Starlight Scopes, Dust Off, 1000 Yard Stare, WIA/KIA--and especially the VA scenes-SNAFU


And I won't even rag on that piece of spineless propaganda, The Green Berets (Wayne's World). Deserves a body bag, nuff said!

Yes, Borrichone but it's not nearly as effective as, say, Sam Fuller's "The Steel Helmet," about the futility of the Korean conflict.

I thought the story in "Platoon" and the acting did not ring true despite anyone's testament that it the film "looked" real.

The story for Terrence Malick's remake of "The Thin Red Line" is almost without peer were it not for "All Quiet on the Western Front" and "Paths of Glory."

Curious as to why nobody has really made the definitive film on Vietnam with all the attempts but for me "Tigerland" and "Hamburger Hill" come the closest.

I thought Oliver Stone gave it his best shot but filmmaking technique took over -- the film is all technique with not real guts. It rings false.

Malick is also cinematic -- take a look at "Days of Heaven," short on story but long on beautiful imagery but it works as a story told in pictures. Oliver Stone is no Terrence Malick although he was trying in "Platoon."

maybe it's just me but I feel that if your going to make a movie about war make it the way it was experienced because the average Joe is going to believe that is what you are doing even if you make something like Platoon. It is disrespectful to make the vet's look bad by showing them doing things they did not do. So for me Platoon is right there with sniper I don't like them but could stand to watch them if I wanted to see a light heart'd movie. Sniper didn't even get the decals right lol I guess having been put in the same position as soldiers they were trying to depict gives me either a bias or an advantage i'm not sure lol

I was aware throughout the movie of Stone blocking scenes and the distinct way he handles his actors, the mock crucifixion being a stand out example. This is true of all Oliver Stone films -- it could be he over directs the actors, I've never been sure. I'll try and rent the film sometimes soon as I haven't seen it for many years. I've just not been impressed by any Oliver Stone films. I watch them and have no real desire to go back and watch them again. You're right about the classical music score -- Barber's "Adagio for Strings."

Lightwizard,

Were you ever across the "Frog Pond" in `Nam? Unless you were, my testimony counts far more than your's or the average schmucks sans the benefit of having been In Country, in the bush, humping trails, or never in firefights, hotzones, or even riding the Freedom Bird home, dare to have the cojones to try to walk the walk and talk the talk!

It's one thing to offer opinions on subjects without experiencing them, but quite another to indirectly infer that both the story and the acting didn't ring true ["despite anyone's testament that the film looked real"]

FYI Well Stone was there (2 tours), I was there (1 tour squad leader and another tour in "snoop&poop"), Capt. Dale Dye was there (4 tours). ..so where were you back then, com biec?

BTW: There are `Namvets, like me, who are sick and tired of all the wannabees arguing about war without knowing what they're talking about!
I've been to the Philippines (where Platoon was shot on location) so I know that terrain, just as I know the terrains of Mayanmar aka Burma, Laos, Campuchea aka Cambodia, Vietnam, Japan, the Ryukyu islands aka Okinawa, and the old Golden Triangle (lawless) region etc. so when I testify that Platoon looked real, it's because it was shot in that Asian country with similar features to Vietnam as it existed back in the late 60's!

Hollywood is full of pinheaded directors/producers who've made/ make warfilms that are worthless dogmeat (Spielberg leads the pack) who never ventured far from the safety of home & hearth, yet they think that by interviewing Vets, doing historical research, etc. that that's supposed to pass muster with their audience, they're sadly misguided.

Directors-producers-screenwriters like Stone are as rare as hens teeth, unlike all the rest, he had the necessary qualifications to make movies like Platoon BECAUSE HE WAS A COMBAT VET!

The scene in which Pvt. Taylor is assigned sh_tdetail was EXACTLY the way that detail was done, certainly no other producer-director would approach that level of realism... Remember when Taylor tried to set off the claymore mine? That also was the way things happened over there! M-16s' jammed, people puked on trails, monsoons were just like that monsoon in Platoon, there were juicers, smokers and pillheads, dudes of all descriptions wiht names likes Rico, Philly, Red, Papa, Vic, Dakota Slim, Tex, Ace-in-the-hole, Snake-eyes...
Nah those H'wood types would rather revise history, pompous action figures, spectacular effects, yada blah, appealing to armchair gung-ho generals and the naivete.

Stone wasn't insulting the `Namvets at all, if anyone thought that, then they didn't get the `drift.'

Just saw the film again -- my opinion still stands despite any long and passionate dissertation of Oliver Stone's qualifications. The purpose of the film is not to preach to the choir thus impressing those who were actually there. It is to be dramatically convincing to those who weren't there. I believe that was Stone's intent. Too many dramatic devices in the film were overblown and not convincing. I find all of Stone's films to be stylistically affected to a fault -- it's just a personal opinion and I am gratified that someone else enjoys the film. Incidentally, Stone was never a politician but has made films about politics.

the one thing i always think when someone starts tearing into a movie about war and especially the Vietnam war is that there were millions of people involved in countless places at different times spaning many years. every person will have a VERY different view of what happened, each will have their own mix of emotions and confusion. Platoon defenetly relects how Oliver Stone felt, it tells a story. It is Impossible to try and explain the Vietnam conflict in one film! No one can do that with any subject! but that is what films do, they try and tell something, they try and make you think and feel. as for hamburger hill, that is based on a specific event. they did an amazing job trying to reflect what happened. the gear, the action, tactics everything was ment to reflect on reality not on the boxoffice.

I agree, Cinderwolf -- I cannot much fault with the script's dialogue in "Platoon," nor the authenticity Stone was striving for. The story and the acting just didn't communicate that these were real people for me and, as I've said, that's happened with all Oliver Stone movies including "Nixon." Tom Berenger, not my favorite actor, was better in "Someone to Watch Over Me." There's nothing inherantly wrong with docudramas, it's just really difficult to be entertaining and staying true to the material. Stone's storyline was full of confrontations that seemed overly contrived. I can also observe that Stone has trouble editing out superflous scenes out of his films. Criticisms like "pinheaded directors" and "dog meat" are not very convincing.