Platoon (1986)

pla•toon | noun |

a subdivision of a company of soldiers, usually forming a tactical division that is commanded by a lieutenant and divided into several sections.

Charlie Sheen is the young, idealistic recruit Chris Taylor who narrates the story while writing letters to his grandmother back home.

Platoon is an Oscar-winning war movie based on director Oliver Stone's personal experiences in Vietnam. Now, I have no idea how accurate - or autobiographical - this movie is, but I found it to be a thoroughly convincing war movie. Right now, I'm tempted to say it's the best war movie ever made. I'm also tempted to say it's one of the best movies I've ever seen.

In Platoon, Charlie Sheen plays Chris Taylor, a young idealist who leaves college to serve in Vietnam. However, Chris' "crusader" spirit is quickly challenged by the brutalities of jungle combat. However, the jungle and the North Vietnamese Army aren't the only enemies Chris must face. Soon, he finds himself caught in a "civil war" inside his platoon. Leading one side is Sgt. Barnes (Tom Berenger), a brutal soldier who inspires some of his platoon with his military exploits and relentless dedication to "the mission."

Tom Berenger is Platoon's "Captain Ahab"-like Sgt. Barnes

Willem Dafoe plays the pot-smoking humanitarian Sgt. Elias.

One the other side is Sgt. Elias (Willem Dafoe), an excellent soldier who no longer believes in "the mission." His only dedication is to protecting the lives of his men. When he catches Barnes murdering Vietnamese villagers suspected of aiding the enemy, he reports him to his superiors. However, military trials take time and there's a war on. So, until a trial can be held, Barnes and Elias are expected to work side by side, leading their platoon in combat. But with a court martial looming on the horizon for Barnes, a rift spreads through the platoon and one by one the soldiers begin to take sides.

And in the jungle, anything can happen...

I'm currently taking a class on American War literature, and one of the things I've discovered is that the trauma, bitterness, and disillusionment associated with the Vietnam War were nothing new. Soldiers had emerged from World War I, World War II, and Korea with similar feelings. However, it wasn't until Vietnam that the soldiers' attitude towards the war matched society's attitude. Unfortunately, in its eagerness to forget about Vietnam, society forgot a lot of brave men who made horrible sacrifices only to return home to nothing. That's truly shameful...

The Wolfman (2010)

Since I was about six, I’ve had a nostalgic love for old monster movies. Once, while visiting my grandparents, I stayed up way past my bedtime eating Lucky Charms and watching old horror movies on TV. I can still vividly recall watching Lon Chaney Jr.’s lycanthropic transformation in The Wolfman (1944). It’s still one of my favorite movie-watching memories. So, when I learned several years ago that a Wolfman remake was in the works, I was ecstatic.

However, while watching Joe Johnston’s Wolfman, I felt a twinge of sadness when I realized that no matter how hard it tried, it could never fully recreate the cinematic aura of Universal’s classic horror movies. Granted, none of these movies were ever Citizen Kane-caliber. They were movies for the masses, “creature features” intended to shock and thrill matinee crowds consisting largely of school kids and necking teenagers. But they had a quality all their own, and they’ve continued to thrill new audiences for over seventy years.

Universal’s horror movies were rich in dark, gloomy Gothic atmosphere and high on suspense and sublimation. Johnston’s remake beautifully recreates that atmosphere, reveling in candlelit, cobwebbed mansions and lonely, foggy moors. It devotes a good deal of time to its sets and costumes, and I was grateful for every shadowy, Gothic-loving moment. However, The Wolfman clearly stumbles with the suspense and sublimation.

What The Wolfman lacks is suspenseful “build up.” Things happen too quickly and when they do, too much is shown. Granted, censorship and technological limitations may explain the “minimal” approach used by classic horror filmmakers, but there’s something to be said for “less-is-more.” The Wolfman ultimately gives into the temptation to “show” rather than “imply,” hindering rather than helping the development of suspense with liberal amounts of blood and gore. It certainly has “jump” scenes, but it never becomes truly scary or horrific.

Ultimately, The Wolfman suffers from too much escalation. For example, in the original Wolfman there’s an implied Freudian conflict between Lawrence Talbot and his father. However, in the new Wolfman, the Oedipal struggle between Lawrence (Benicio Del Toro) and Sir John (Anthony Hopkins) is intensified. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with that, except it results in an unfortunate “papa-werewolf” vs. “junior-werewolf” fight scene that would be more appropriate in Underworld or Van Helsing.

However, this scene (and others like it) may be in the movie simply because moviegoers expect it. Many of The Wolfman's faults are directly related to the audience. Today, people have seen too many werewolf movies. They’ve seen The Wolfman, The Howling, An American Werewolf in London, and yes, even New Moon. Because of that, they have expectations that limit the creative freedom of the filmmakers. Contemporary audiences don’t want to see Lawrence spend a lot of time worrying about whether or not he’s a werewolf. They don’t expect villagers to debate whether or not to riot with pitchforks and torches. They expect a monster movie to feature monsters going at it like professional wrestlers. They expect to see blood and gore instead of discrete fade-outs or off-camera screaming. This means there’s not much room for creating suspense or subtle storytelling.

Maybe that’s why the acting in The Wolfman is also unsatisfying. Benicio Del Toro, Anthony Hopkins, Emily Blunt, and Hugo Weaving are all excellent actors, but they're given little room to act beyond the material given them. Del Toro, for example, clearly tries to stay faithful to Chaney's Lawrence Talbot. While that’s admirable, the result is too subdued and muted. We never feel the agony and dread that Chaney channeled in the original. It feels more like imitation than acting. Emily Blunt’s performance is perfunctory, but she’s ultimately little more than Victorian eye candy. Hugo Weaving is entirely superfluous as the police inspector hunting Lawrence. In another movie, a tense relationship between Lawrence and the inspector could have developed, but not in this movie. Anthony Hopkins is undoubtedly the most interesting character in the story, but I kept feeling that I’ve seen Anthony Hopkins play this role one too many times.

At this point, Universal Studios’ four classic monster movies – Dracula, Frankenstein, The Mummy, and The Wolfman – have all been remade for contemporary audiences. Unfortunately, none of these remakes have really measured up to the originals.

Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula (1991) worked against its literary roots, trying to transform Bram Stoker’s horror classic into a romance. The results were less than spectacular. Kenneth Branagh’s Frankenstein (1994), on the other hand, attempted a more faithful adaptation of Mary Shelley’s novel by returning the narrative focus to Victor Frankenstein instead of his Monster; however, years of cultural preoccupation with Boris Karloff’s Monster made the transition difficult for audiences to accept. With his Mummy (1999), Stephen Sommers took a completely different approach, giving moviegoers a campy, fun-natured adventure flick that had more in common with Indiana Jones than Boris Karloff.

Of all the remakes, Joe Johnston’s Wolfman is probably the best. I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, I was still less than satisfied with it. It fails to recreate the best qualities of the original. Instead, it actually hinders itself with modern “additions” that ultimately contribute nothing new to the story, making us wonder if a remake was really ever necessary.

Point Blank (1967)

John Boorman’s neo-noir thriller Point Blank is considered by many people to be the quintessential revenge film. It stars Lee Marvin as Walker, a professional thief whose unfaithful wife Lynn (Sharon Acker) and double-crossing partner Reese (Jim Vernon) betray him during a big heist on Alcatraz Island. They take Walker’s money, shoot him twice, and leave him for dead in a prison cell. However, two years later, Walker returns from the dead, ready for vengeance.

All Walker wants is his fair share...

Walker’s plan for revenge is fairly simple and straightforward: track down Reese and recover the $93,000 he stole. However, this proves to be anything but simple since Reese now belongs to The Organization, a powerful criminal syndicate. In order to get his man and his money, Walker will have to work his way up the chain of command, going all the way to the top of The Organization. Of course, this means fistfights, chase scenes, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and lots of killing. It also means strange interactions with Yost (Keenan Wynn), a mysterious informant who gives Walker information about The Organization, and a little steamy romance with Chris (Angie Dickinson), Walker’s ex-wife’s sister who becomes his somewhat unwilling accomplice as he searches for revenge.

Dead and dreaming? The mysterious Yost tells Walker about The Organization while he remembers his remarkable escape from Alcatraz Island.

Many critics believe that the main part of Point Blank is a dream. They argue that Walker actually dies in the opening, and the rest of the film is his dream of revenge. After watching the movie, I think I agree with this interpretation for several reasons.

First, Walker does seem to die in that Alcatraz cell. Even if he did survive being shot, it seems improbable that he could swim across San Francisco Bay, especially since a tourist guide tells us later in the film how impossible it is for anyone to escape from Alcatraz. When Walker’s asked by Yost how he did it, he remains silent on the subject.

Point Blank boasts incredible cinematography. The scene where Walker tracks down his unfaithful wife was my favorite moment in the film...

Second, there’s the mysterious Yost whose interactions with Walker are fascinating. They never look at each other; they talk while staring off camera; Yost comes and goes, mysteriously appearing at convenient moments to help Walker’s mission. All of this suggests that Yost is a specter, a character in Walker’s imagination.

Third, there’s the scene where Walker visits his unfaithful wife Lynn who, overcome with guilt, either commits suicide or dies of an accidental drug overdose. Shaken by this, Walker wanders around his wife’s house and notices that all the furniture’s gone. Then, her body’s gone. Then, suddenly, everything returns to “normal.”

Fourth, there’s the frequent use of visual tropes like mirrors, reflections, windows, transparent barriers, etc. that suggest there’s more to what we see than what meets the eye.

Fifth, this movie blends film noir conventions and New Wave techniques, resulting in a very dreamlike and hyper-real look. Many directors have imitated this, and I’d be willing to bet that David Lynch stole a thing or two from this movie.

However, ultimately, I’m not sure it matters whether or not Point Blank is “real” or a “dream.” The best movies, I’ve always found, are the movies that support multiple interpretations without necessarily establishing any particular one as the “legitimate” or “ultimate” view. Point Blank does that. There are plenty of interpretations, but in the end this movie is about what we see, not what we think. It’s a visceral thrill.

Payback may be an unnecessary remake, but it's still a fun remake.

Before I close, I feel compelled to mention Mel Gibson’s Payback, a 1999 remake of Point Blank. Critics have been unjustly harsh to this movie, I think. No matter what people say, I still have a fondness for Payback. It’s not an overly great or highly original movie by any stretch of the imagination. It keeps Point Blank’s neo-noir conventions while abandoning its art-house style. However, I don’t think that negates the movie. Ultimately, Payback is infinitely more fun than Point Blank (probably because Mel Gibson is infinitely more fun than Lee Marvin), and some days that’s all I want out of a movie.

[On a side note, Stanley Fish has written an excellent critique of the revenge genre on his New York Times blog. Point Blank is mentioned. For those interested in reading it, click here.]