Film

Rip It Up, Issue 117, 1 April 1987, Page 20

Film

PLATOON

Director: Oliver Stone

Although it's now 15 years since the USA finally removed their military presence from Vietnam, the scars have not healed on either side. In the late 70s, films like Coppola's Apocalypse Now and Hal Ashby’s Coming Home made an attempt to show the horror of the war and the problems of its civil aftermath. Oliver Stoness film, based on his own experiences, aims at portraying the nightmare that was Vietnam through the eyes of a raw recruit.

Chris (Charlie Sheen) has enlisted himself through a combination of misplaced patriotism and late 60s rebelliousness. As gutwrenching as the battlefield turns out to be, Sheen soon finds out that the conflict between the Americans themselves is just as savage. As Stone's voice-over comments towards the end of the film, “We fought ourselves; the enemy is in us” This is shown most dramatically in the stuggle between the brutal, macho Barnes (Tom Berenger) — a prototype for all Rambos — and the lithe, idealistic Elias (Willem Dafoe). It is a struggle carried out, like the war itself, in an arena where life means little, and conventional concepts of morality count for nothing at all — living in Death row, an existence made bearable through either dope or booze. In a world where the philosophy of survival is “keep your pecker hard and your powder dry" life is brutal and Stone’s film has its shocks, the most appalling being some vicious attacks on Vietnamese civilians in the first part of the film.

By definition, being a “war film,” there's plenty of action in Platoon and Stone choreographs it with consummate ease, particularly in the brilliant fast tracking shots in the jungle scenes, climaxing in Dafoe’s headlong rush to his death, slowly peppered by the bullets of the pursuing Viet Cong. Yet, because of the intense dynamism of these scenes, the more reflective moments are all the more moving, and Samuel Barber's ‘Adagio for Strings’ seems to grow in poignancy as it recurs with

each of these sequences. The question remains — is Platoon the ultimate commentary on the Vietnam war? Although | don't feel it has the intellectual weight of Apocalypse Now, the recent success of Stone’s movie in the Academy Awards would seem to indicate it is a timely release. As one American critic has commented, this film should be essential viewing for anyone who thinks that war in Central America would be glamorous, desirable, or even sane ... but have Ron and Nancy seen it yet? William Dart

THE COLOUR OF MONEY Director: Martin Scorsese Robert Rossen’s 1961 film The Hustler is still an extraordinary achievement, with Paul Newman's portrayal of Fast Eddie, one of the classic American anti-heroes, a character whom the director described as being flawed by the need to “win before everything else”

Twenty-six years on, we meet Eddie again in Martin Scorsese’s The Colour of Money. He's now in the liquor business and sets up a scheme to take a talented young pool player Vince Guardis (Tom Cruise) on a pool hall crawl to big times in Atlantic City. The years haven't changed Newman’s philosophy of life much — at one point he remarks to Cruise that money which is won is twice as sweet as money earnt. Scorsese tackles his subject in a different way from what Rossen did, developing the relationship of Newman, Cruise, and the young man'’s girlfriend, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, in what amounts to a pool hall road film. Rossen showed relatively few games, but treated them in some detail; Scorsese, plotting the trio’s journey to the Mecca of Atlantic city, shows a good few, many represented by a few desultory shots and the inevitable handing over of money. In some, however, Michael Ballhaus's camera is allowed to embellish the contests with hurtling zooms, quick pans, sped-up motion and extreme close-up shots, to highlight the obsessional quality of the game. Ballhaus's camera isn't the only virtuoso turn. Perhaps Newman’s character looks a little wellpreserved for what the real Fast Eddie might have been after a quarter of a century, but he gives

a beautifully timed performance, especially in his scenes with Cruise, and the marvellous gambit at the bar with Helen Shaver, all close-ups and slyness. Cruise, though a lighter weight than Newman in the acting stakes, brings just the right cocky exuberance to his role, including a marvellous scene in which a pool-table turn becomes a compendium of various pieces of Americana, from majorette baton twirling through break-dancing to Kung Fu, ending with Cruise holding the cue stick behind his shoulders a /a James Dean — all to Warren Zevon's ‘Werewolves of London’ Robbie Robertson’s soundtrack starts promisingly over the credit titles and soon dissipates into rock muzak (in spite of the Gil Evans orchestrations) but there are other musical bonuses — the alert might notice Iggy Pop in a brief appearance as one of Cruise’s conquered opponents, described in the credits as “Skinny Player on the Road.” William Dart

Feel the Energy Wanting to inject some of his inimitable energy into the local live scene — and keep busy until the DD Smash album is recorded in June — Peter Warren is putting a band together for a tour playing “uptempo dance music, neglected DD Smash songs, and New Zealand classics.” In the band will be ex-Legionnaire Andrew Langsford, Andrew Bowden (a NZ guitarist from Sydney), and Dance Exponent Dave Ghent. Their first shows are at Wildlife on May 1 & 2, and the “Feel the Energy” tour will run through May, including some underage gigs. Then Warren will record two of his own songs for a single. Oh, the band’s name? Rooda — what else?