I remember seeing this movie in the 80s. My girlfriend was working so Paul… a friend of mine and I went to see it. We saw a lot of bad and good movies during this time because we had time to kill and he knew the owner or the manager of the movie theater and we would get in free. We bought popcorn and coke so I didn’t feel so bad.
This is the first movie I remember leaving afterward and us not saying a word to each other for a good 30 minutes. Not the usual laughter and carrying on. This was one of those movies that really affected me. The village scene was brutal and it took a while to process it all. I just saw it again a couple of nights ago and it still works.
I’ve seen Vietnam Vets interviewed who have said this film brought a lot of it back…good and mostly bad. This is not a feel-good film but its a superb movie.
You see Tom Berenger as Sergeant Bob Barnes as he snaps and Charlie Sheen’s character Chris Taylor tries to hold it together at the end.
Oliver Stone put these actors through hell. Two weeks of intense basic training in the jungle with a Marine trainer. They dug their own holes and lived off of rations over the shoot.
From Wiki the cast
- Charlie Sheen as Chris Taylor
- Tom Berenger as Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes
- Willem Dafoe as Sergeant Elias
- Keith David as King
- Forest Whitaker as Big Harold
- Francesco Quinn as Rhah
- Kevin Dillon as Bunny
- John C. McGinley as Sergeant O’Neill
- Reggie Johnson as Junior
- Mark Moses as Lieutenant Wolfe
- Corey Glover as Francis
- Johnny Depp as Lerner
- Chris Pedersen as Crawford
- Bob Orwig as Gardner
- Corkey Ford as Manny
- David Neidorf as Tex
- Richard Edson as Sal
- Tony Todd as Sergeant Warren
- Dale Dye as Captain Harris
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