jseymour wrote:Smitty-48 wrote:I'd say Act of Valor doesn't try to conceal the fact that it is basically an extended recruitment film, whereas Lone Survivor is a subliminal recruitment film which tries to pass itself of as historical, so I find Act of Valor to be more redeemed, simply by being more transparent.
Also, Act of Valor doesn't have the conceit to fuck with actual events, whereas Lone Survivor does, and then blows it, badly.
I admit that the changing of the story of how he got rescued was bullshit but I also understand why they did it. I remember watching the making of it, and they wanted Marky Mark to knife a guy to death, and Marcus said. "Dude, what the fuck, come on." and they cut it. It wasn't totally accurate but was as accurate as they could within the boundaries of not giving away key intel that would have gotten other guys killed.
It's starts out OK, it's like two movies, everything up to and through the gunfight is fine, I thought the initiating contact and then the process of just being overrun was the best part of the movie, but then it just falls apart, by the time you get the Chinook scene, you're like, OK, this has turned into Hollywood cheese now.
jseymour wrote:Smitty-48 wrote:The ironic thing is, the best subliminal recruitment films, are the Hollywood Liberal Panty Waist Anti-Vietnam War films; what better American War Gods, than Colonel Kilgore and Sergeant Barnes?
I rememeber when my father said "Oooh, that Sgt Barnes is evil!" and I said, "What?! Barnes is the hero, the rest of those clowns would have been dead along time ago without Barnes! Elias gets all stoned and then he just goes a lone ranger rush, whoopie fuckin do! Elias was a rat, he had to go, you dont fuckin rat to the Man, in a war zone."
When I was a kid I thought Barnes was evil too, after growing up I'm like we need more guys like Barnes.
Platoon is at its best, when it's morally ambiguous and bleak, state sanctioned mass murder in a harsh realm; "that's how the Gook laughs", "everybody gotta die sometime, Red", "I told the Padre, I like it here" Platoon is at its worst, when it degenerates into preachy moralizing sermon, and the Elias Jesus crucifixion; get real.
It's like at the end, when Taylor has Barnes dead to rights, now my father is saying ""yeah, shoot him", and I'm like "wayment, so when Barnes is judge jury and executioner in a harsh realm, he's 'evil', but when Taylor does it, he's 'righteous'? I think you're missing the point..."
There's actually an alternate ending, where Taylor doesn't shoot Barnes, just shakes his head derisively and walks away, the preachy moralizing holier than thou finale, but that would of course defeat the whole purpose of the parable, the circle is not squared, until Taylor becomes Barnes himself.
Old Testament Platoon; thumbs up. New Testament Platoon; meh.
