James Proclaims!

I used to have a house mate, back in the late nineties, who described Oliver Stone’s Platoon as his favourite movie. Given that we agreed on pretty much everything related to cinema, you’d have thought I’d have watched it straight away, but for some reason I waited over two decades. As pointless as this annual countdown might be, and as many awful movies as I may have watched, it has meant I’ve righted some of these wrongs.

Because Platoon is an excellent movie. Not a particularly joyful one admittedly but compelling from start to finish.

It’s often credited with giving a realistic portrayal of the Vietnam war. I can’t comment on that because I didn’t fight in Vietnam what with not having been born. I’m also the wrong nationality, but I think the not being born thing probably trumps that. But if it is realistic then war really doesn’t look like much fun at all, so I’m glad I wasn’t there.

Score for Christmasishness

It’s not very Christmassy really, but a significant part of the narrative does take place on New Year’s Day. There are scenes that precede that which may therefore be set around Christmas time and certainly it looks like there might be some Christmas decorations up in the scenes at base camp. But it’s not really clear when those scenes are supposed to be taking place, so the New Year’s Day element is the only proof we have that Platoon, in its own harrowing way, is a bit Christmas(ish).