Platoon

    Platoon is a movie of a soldier, Chris Taylor, who dropped out of college to fight in the Vietnam War only to find out that it is nothing like he expected it to be.  The movie shows much of the experiences of Vietnam from the gruesome combat to the tension within the platoon.  It does this well through its development of characters.  It shows the violence and atrocity of the war, much through the actions of Sgt. Barnes.  Barnes in many ways embodies what many people hated about the Vietnam.  He gives orders and never listens to anyone but himself.  He shoots an old woman for not being quiet and nearly shoots a little girl to get a guy to talk before Sgt. Elias stops him.   Though these things did happen, how the movie portrays it makes the audience hate Barnes.  This is intensified immensely when Barnes shoots Elias and leaves him in the forest.  One thing that this movie showed that others about Vietnam I have seen did not is how bad the relationships between the soldiers could get, even bad enough for them to kill one another.  This, overall, is probably the best movie about Vietnam that I have seen.
     Of the ten movie themes, this one contains battle, man vs. himself, and, to an extent, good vs. evil.  It contains battle because it is a war movie and is centered around fighting.  It has man vs. himself because Taylor is fighting inside his head about the reality of the war and what he thought back in America.  His opinion has changed almost since the second he got there and he is also driven to do brutal things, such as taunting a Vietnamese man at gunpoint and killing Barnes.  This movie shows good vs. evil in the fact through Barnes.  Taylor and others hate Barnes and his cruelty.  They are constantly at odds with hm throughout the movie.  This finally ends when Taylor is alone with Barnes and wants payback for all the he has done, especially killing(or at least trying to kill), Elias.  Overall, I would give this movie a four out of five.