Review of Platoon: Special Edition

Introduction

Oliver Stone’s Platoon was the first in his Vietnam Trilogy, and is often cited as the most realistic example of the Vietnam War in a film. Released in 1986 to huge critical acclaim, Platoon won four Oscars, including Best Picture and Best Director.

MGM have released their Special Edition version, which includes the extras that were found on Live’s previous Region 1 SE disc.

Video

MGM’s anamorphic widescreen presentation is excellent considering the age of the film. The picture is sharp throughout and never descends into softness, and I noted no artifacts or flaws. The colours are well produced – take the vibrant greens and dark shadows of the jungle sequences as an example. This is a picture worthy of a great movie such as this.

Audio

Live’s previous disc was THX-certified, and although MGM`s sound is only plain 5.1, the Dolby Digital track is still very good, especially considering the age of the film. There are good spatial effects – again, the best is heard during the jungle scenes, where an eerie atmosphere of bugs and footsteps is created. The track lacks a little in bass, but the action sequences still contain enough rumble in them to satisfy.

Features

The set of extras included here are excellent. The two commentaries recorded by Live are both present – one by Oliver Stone, the other by military supervisor Captain Dale Dye. Stone’s commentary is both informative and entertaining, as he talks pretty much non-stop about a film obviously very personal to him. Captain Dye’s commentary is more on the technical side of filming, but is also very interesting and well worth a listen. One beef I do have though is that I couldn’t access the commentaries ‘on the fly’, instead having to select them from the menu. Luckily these tracks are so good they are worth listening all the way through, but sometimes you may just want to ‘dip’ into them and so need access during the movie.

The other main extra is the 51min long documentary “Tour of the Inferno”. This covers practically everything you would ever want to know about the pre-production, the shooting, and the impact the film had. This documentary is one of the best ever made for a film, and, when combined with the commentaries, provide a definitive look at Platoon.

Completing the set of extras are the trailer, TV spots and still galleries.

Conclusion

Platoon stands up there with the other great Vietnam movies – Full Metal Jacket, The Deer Hunter and, in my opinion slightly above them all, Apocalypse Now. What makes this movie so powerful is its authenticity – indeed, the story is based on the experiences Stone himself had in the war.

Whilst not so much possessing a plot as telling us of Cadet Chris Taylor’s journey through "hell", Platoon never loses the searing pace that grips you from Taylor’s arrival until the finale of Sergeants Elias and Barnes’s struggle “for his soul”. The action sequences are excellent (if not quite matching the heights of Saving Private Ryan or The Thin Red Line) and the acting superb, with Charlie Sheen producing a career-best performance. Combine this with a brilliant, moving score and the allegory of ‘God and the Devil’ in the two Sergeants - culminating in Willem Dafoe’s Christ-like cover shot - and it is plain to see that Stone has created a masterpiece. Platoon contains all the elements that make the War genre my favourite of them all.

I’m also pleased to say that MGM have created a stunning DVD that belongs in anyone’s collection, and so this disc deserves high scores all round.