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Platoon is the first part of Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy, having been followed by Born on the Fourth of July and Heaven and Earth.

The world here is seen through the eyes of raw recruit Chris Taylor (Charlie Sheen) who dropped out of college and wanted to do his share for his country, touring 'Nam for a year from September 1967. He really doesn't know what he's letting himself in for though with insects in the jungle biting him being the least of his worries as troops from the other allegiances are out to hunt him and his platoon out too.

This is an exceptionally powerful film with strong dialogue, a number of surprise scenes and plenty of violence as the men tour from place to place setting up camp, getting high to ease the pain, torching "gook" villages and committing illegal acts as they go.

A large cast is effectively led by Charlie Sheen with his narration in the form of letters home to his grandma. There are the two warring Sargeants, Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Elias (Willem Dafoe) leading to a tense showdown, the aptly-named Big Harold (Forest Whitaker), the big-talk-but-chicken-shit Sargeant O'Neill (John C. McGinley), the over-zealous Bunny (Kevin Dillon, who later appeared in Stone's The Doors) and translator Lerner (Johnny Depp).

Stone obviously drew upon his recollection of his own time in Vietnam for this film. It's certificate is a mystery too, since the content is typical for most 18-cert war films, but Stone was favoured by the BBFC and the film was given a 15-cert, whilst the less-violent Full Metal Jacket from Stanley Kubrick was stuck with an 18.

Sargeant Barnes. He's not very nice.

Presented in the original 1.85:1 widescreen ratio, the print is anamorphic similar to the recent Region 1 release, making them both better picture-wise than the previous Region 1 Special Edition, although with much less extras. There are a few flecks on the print but nothing to worry about particularly. The average bitrate is 7.65Mb/s, often peaking above 9Mb/s.

In 1992, a widescreen video was released in the UK framed at approx 2.00:1. On comparison with this DVD, some scenes have been matted a little bit more to get that ratio, while others appear to have lost a little info from the sides. Given that the film was shot open-matte in the first place and that the 1.85:1 ratio is stated on the Region 1 Special Edition as a 'Director-approved transfer', then this is the ratio we'll forever be left with but there's never a scene that looks badly-framed so I'm happy with it and the colours on the DVD are a lot stronger.

A remixed Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack is available for English dialogue and comes into its own when the gunfire lets rip in the jungle, not to mention the evocative use of Barber's Adagio for Strings, often played during the film - particularly at the end - and it was recently bastardised by William Orbit and stuck in the charts with a dance beat behind it. Dialogue is clear too, which is essential for Sheen's narration.

Sargeant Elias poses for the cover.

This time round we get the extras we deserve. First up are trailers for both Platoon and the DVD release of Salvador. Note that the latter is a promotional trailer so doesn't tell you what the actual film is like. There are also three 30-second TV Spots, focusing on different areas of the production, along with Stills Galleries for 'Behind the Scenes' and 'Poster Art'.

The documentary, Tour of the Inferno, runs for 50 minutes and is superb. It showed that the cast all took in two weeks of basic training that would normally be done in 14 weeks. Charlie Sheen talks about making a choice between not breathing while sleeping, or letting mosquitos eat him all night and then wake up looking like the Toxic Avenger; John C. McGinley discusses being woken up with water bugs copulating in his mouth; Willem Dafoe mentions the time he drank water from a stream then noticed further up the stream was a fat, dead pig in there, which caused him to be delirious for the next 24 hours. Finally, Tom Berenger complains about having to walk miles and miles carrying heavy luggage, while Oliver Stone casually drives past in his jeep.

Two Audio Commentaries are also included. One from director Stone and the other from Military advisor Captain Dale Dye.

There are 32 chapters to the movie, dialogue comes in Dolby Digital 5.1 for English and Spanish, while subtitles come in 13 languages: English (and hard of hearing), Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian, Danish, Portuguese, Polish, Greek, Hungarian, Hebrew, Turkish and Czech.

The menus are silent but contain subtle animation.

War's a drag for Charlie Sheen.

Overall, this is one of my all-time favourite films and it's great to finally combine an anamorphic transfer with some great extras.

FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS
OVERALL

Review copyright © Dominic Robinson, 2001.

DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.

PC games reviewed by the editor are on: