Vietnam trilogy by Oliver Stone
Platoon - Part 1
Born on Fourth of July - Part 2
Heaven and Earth - Part 3

Oliver Stone takes his peculiar look at Vietnam. Great.

**A great film that reminds you that Tom Cruise can play a role other than himself.**

A beautiful film about war, about the consequences it leaves on a pearson who has got into it, pushed by an unconscious maternal pressure that the one who is worthwhile is the one who does something in life that is worthwhile and if you are nobody, by faith, and by the ideas they sell of patriotism and fighting against the enemy and for the country, and, once back, the internal contradiction of what you firmly believed in, for what you have fought and what you have been willing to give your life for, it may not be true, you stop believing in it, the confrontation with that situation and not knowing what to believe in, being aimless, the inner contradiction is also shown externally, in that, those who at first idolized him, then treated him like scum, very good film about uncertainty and about war and what this means.

Director Oliver Stone continues his exploration of Vietnam in the biopic Born on the Fourth of July. Based on an autobiography, the film follows Ron Kovic who enlisted in the Marines to fight in Vietnam, but is paralyzed during a firefight and comes home to an America that he doesn’t understand. Starring Tom Cruise, Willem Dafoe, and Stephen Baldwin, the cast is quite formidable. However, while Cruise delivers an impressive performance, the script fails him and has trouble capturing the transformation of Kovic from a jingoistic veteran to a leader in the anti-Vietnam War movement. Born on the Fourth of July has some compelling and dramatic character moments, but it doesn’t quite come together as a cohesive story.

While I do like the movie, if I’m being honest, it does lose steam. It starts off really good all of the way through Ron’s childhood, the war sequence and hospital rehab. Once Ron gets home, this is where Ron’s story is supposed to really begin. I feel it goes the other way though.

Big fan of Oliver Stone, specifically JFK. However, I felt this movie jumped around too much. Plus, I spent too much time staring at Tom Cruise's fake mustache and hair.