While I had heard about this film a great deal and do in fact remember how popular it was at the time of it's release, I somehow managed to not watch this somewhat famous film until yesterday. Perhaps it was the nearly 2 and a half hour runtime or maybe it was released at a point in time where I shunned all Academy nominated films. Whatever the reason was, I ignored this film for 35 years.
I enjoy war films and as I am certain most people are aware, that is exactly what this is. Since it was produced and directed by Oliver Stone, this was always going to end up in award-ville, but it is still kind of surprising to me that Tom Cruise was selected for the main role. Keep in mind that this was released in 1989 and Tom hadn't yet been typecast as the action star that he is so well-known for these days.
Was he the best person that they could have selected for the role? I kind of think so after watching it.
Cruise plays that main role of Ron Kovic, a boy who was raised in a military family and was brought up to believe that there was no greater honor than to serve your country in the armed forces. He was just the right age when the Vietnam war was going on, and unlike many others, he was excited about the idea of getting involved in combat to fight against the spread of communism. He grew up a true patriot and has a massive love for his country.
Without spoiling too much let's just say that things don't go so well for Ron, and he is grievously injured in a combat mission gone terribly wrong. At first he starts out hopeful that he will recover from his paralysis and works harder than anyone else in a gung ho fashion convince that if you just work hard enough, you can overcome anything.
When he returns home after the injury, he is at first admonished as a hometown hero and they put on a parade in his honor. Despite what has happened to him because of his service in the military, he is completely dedicated to his patriotism and has a strong belief that what the USA is doing over in Asia is the correct path and he has no regrets for having participated in it. Over time as public sentiment towards the war loses steam, and he is taken care of less and less by his family, the government, and the general public, his position on these things starts to change slowly but surely.
Like so many others that were in this position, he lives out his days in a booze-fueled walking dead sort of fashion as he is kind of pressured by his family who has grown tired of his drunken antics, to go to a community in Mexico that is popular among those veterans that are restricted to wheelchairs because of war injuries.
This is where he truly hits rock bottom as he slowly becomes the people that he meets and initially loathes.
I didn't even know what Willem DaFoe was in this movie until he appeared on screen and it was awesome to me that he agreed to do what for him would be considered a "bit role." As expected DaFoe is incredible but for me, I was really impressed with Cruise in this movie.
I tend to forget that there was a time when Tom was considered an absolutely fantastic actor and had a lot more range than we have seen from him in the past 10 years. These days he seems to only be interested in "cash cow" action films but maybe Tom had already seen the other side of acting and just decided to cash in. This film kind of proves that he is a fantastic actor and at one point or another was interested in making genuinely good films. He also likely did this film for damn near free since the entire budget of the whole film was less than $20 million.
I'll be honest and say that this lack of budget is kind of evident in the combat sequences. I don't think they did a very good job of creating a believable "Vietnam" in the few war scenes that we get to see. As it turns out they were filmed in the Philippines. It turns out that Oliver Stone wanted to film in Vietnam but was denied that opportunity by the Vietnamese government. I can't imagine why :P
The film is very powerful though. We see this boy turned man who has everything taken away from him but still continues to fight until he hits rock bottom because of a system that turned its back on him and threw him out once he was no longer of any use to it. While I don't know anyone that was subjected to this sort of thing because the war was over when I was born, I am sure there are a lot of stories that are just like this one.
In fact, this film is based on the real life of the real Ron Kovic and Oliver Stone, who is himself a veteran from that same war, was eager to work on making this film.
Should I watch it?
The quality of that trailer can kind of give you an indication as to how old this film is.
This film is extremely tragic and for the right kind of person it will have a lasting impact on them after watching it. The horror of war is something that fortunately most of us don't know anything about and the story of Ron is the story of countless others who started out as enthusiastic members fighting for a cause that they were kind of brainwashed into participating in in the first place.
I think the main reason to watch this is because it is truly a wonderful display of how talented Tom Cruise actually is. Aside from Jerry McGuire and Magnolia, we never really got to see what Tom is actually capable of because I think Tom realized pretty early on that the real money is in cash-grab action films and not so much in dramatic performances such as this one. Tom was nominated for "best actor" for his role, but didn't win. He was beaten by Daniel Day-Lewis and if you were ever going to lose to anyone and not have any shame about it, it would be losing to Daniel as it isn't even a fair fight competing with someone who is likely the single greatest actor alive.
This film is long, so strap yourself in or break it into a two-night ordeal. I had planned on breaking it into two parts but the next thing I knew I was pausing the movie for a bathroom break only to realize that it was 15 minutes from the end. They do a good job of keeping you interested all the way through and this film truly deserved the nominations that it got.
Especially if you enjoy war films that are based on actual events, I think that you will enjoy this one.
This film can be legally streamed on Netflix and Amazon, and is available for purchase for a few dollars on basically all the other services as well
