1986 Platoon

Oliver Stone found huge success in the 80's. He was a script writer, previously having penned Salvador to great acclaim, as well as Scarface and Midnight Express, and had served in the Vietnam war. This was a conflict that interested Hollywood greatly in the 80's, Oliver Stone's Platoon was at the forefront of that. It would start an interest in revisiting historical events from the 1960's, culminating in Stone's JFK.

Platoon stars Charlie Sheen, the son of Martin Sheen who had taken on the role of a young soldier in Francis Ford Coppola's epic drama Apocalypse Now. Charlie plays a rookie flung into combat with a a bunch of soldiers who are mentally affected by the war. On duty he meets Tom Berenger, Willem Dafoe in a stand-out role, and a wild John C. McGinley. As the story unfolds the duality of man becomes more apparent.

This marked the beginning of Oliver Stone's success as a writer and director. Here he swept the Oscars, winning best picture and best director and receiving 8 nominations, including for Berenger and Dafoe.

The cast are superb, as are the set pieces. The most remarkable aspect of the movie is the use of music to images, something which has become a Stone trademark. There is a beautifully heartbreaking moment of Dafoe's Elias being brutally killed to the Adagio with Strings by Barber. It is a wonderfully powerful image, and something that reminds you of the horrors of war. Oliver Stone was the first Viet-Vet to put his story to film.

The after effects of this movie are enormous. It started the trend for 60's music in movies, for Vietnam dramas, and without it we wouldn't have had Hamburger Hill or Full Metal Jacket. It's success led studio bosses to believe that war films work. Stone went on to make Wall Street, another success for him, The Doors and he completed his Vietnam trilogy, with Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth.

Platoon was the pinnacle, and on a $6m budget it made $138m.

Platoon also made its way to home computers with the addition of a cassette of the music, I had it on disk for an Amstrad 128. The games are only now available secondhand and the link takes you to Ebay Uk for a browse. Platoon Computer Game