Customer Reviews

Born on the Fourth of July

5 star:		(59)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I didn't want to like this movie. I'm usually resistant to any film whose director grinds an ax so relentlessly as Oliver Stone has been known to, and never so obviously as with this film. But I recently ran across the NY Times list of 1000 best films, and "Born On the Fourth of July" is listed there. While any such list is naturally debatable, it caused me to want to see more of those on the list that I hadn't seen, and a satellite channel was running this film at a convenient time. I must say, the excellence of Stone's craftsmanship, and of Tom Cruise's performance, wore down my resistance to his message, although it took almost half of this lengthy biopic to get past my defenses.

What we have here is the true story of a man whose birthday coincides with that of his country, a young man who was properly raised to love all things American. His patriotism led him to volunteer for the Marine Corps and the Vietnam war in the late 1960s, where everything he had ever believed was challenged in the strongest possible terms. The watershed events that finally moved him from traditional all-out American patriot to an American who loves his country but distrusts the government and opposes war, however, were events that mostly followed that famously horrifying war, and said events were often as horrifying in their own way as the things he experienced in Vietnam.

This truly is an excellent film, no doubt about it. Stone, a Vietnam vet himself, frames his story expertly, brings out superb performances from all of his players, and included Mr. Kovic (on whose autobiographical book this film is based) at every stage of the production. The pacing of the tale is smooth and understandable for its nearly 2-1/2 hour length, and the viewer never has a serious problem wondering where Cruise's character is coming from emotionally or intellectually.

"Born On the Fourth of July" has proven to be the capstone of Oliver Stone's career, and was the performance that took Tom Cruise from teen idol to respected actor. No wonder, as Cruise at times does more in this film with a look than he had been able to accomplish with pages of dialogue earlier in his career.

As with almost any 'Nam film, the gore of battle and over-the-top filthy language of its scarred survivors mean that viewing it is more of a cathartic experience than a pleasant one, but beyond that my only nitpick is that one scene has some vets listening to Don McLean's "American Pie" in 1968, three years before the song was recorded. With that minor caveat, the film has given me a lot to think about. While I don't agree with Stone's politics, there is no question that he, Kovic, and others have arrived at their perspective honestly and forcefully, and this film serves as a fine record of a time in our country's history when we fought a second civil war of sorts. Men like Stone and Kovic are the living casualties of that time, and they deserve our respect.

I avoided this when it came out in 1989 having seen Coming Home (1978) and not wanting to revisit the theme of paraplegic sexual dysfunction and frustration. I also didn't want to reprise the bloody horror of our involvement in the war in Vietnam that I knew Oliver Stone was going to serve up. And Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic? I just didn't think it would work.

Well, my preconceptions were wrong.

First of all, for those who think that Tom Cruise is just another pretty boy (which was basically my opinion), this movie sets that mistaken notion to rest. He is nothing short of brilliant in a role that is enormously demanding--physically, mentally, artistically, and emotionally. I don't see how anybody could play that role and still be the same person. Someday in his memoirs, Tom Cruise is going to talk about being Ron Kovic as directed by Oliver Stone.

And second, Stone's treatment of the sex life of Viet Vets in wheelchairs is absolutely without sentimentality or silver lining. There are no rose petals and no soft pedaling. There was no Jane Fonda, as in Coming Home, to play an angel of love. Instead the high school girl friend understandably went her own way, and love became something you bought if you could afford it.

And third, Stone's depiction of America--and this movie really is about America, from the 1950s to the 1970s--from the pseudo-innocence of childhood war games and 4th of July parades down Main street USA to having your guts spilled in a foreign land and your brothers-in-arms being sent home in body bags--was as indelible as black ink on white parchment. He takes us from proud moms and patriotic homilies to the shameful neglect in our Veteran's hospitals to the bloody clashes between anti-war demonstrators and the police outside convention halls where reveling conventioneers wave flags and mouth phony slogans.

I have seen most of Stone's work and as far as fidelity to authentic detail and sustained concentration, this is his best. There are a thousand details that Stone got exactly right, from Dalton Trumbo's paperback novel of a paraplegic from WW I, Johnny Got His Gun, that sat on a tray near Kovic's hospital bed, to the black medic telling him that there was a more important war going on at the same time as the Vietnam war, namely the civil rights movement, to a mother throwing her son out of the house when he no longer fulfilled her trophy case vision of what her son ought to be, to Willem DaFoe's remark about what you have to do sexually when nothing in the middle moves.

Also striking were some of the scenes. In particular, the confession scene at the home of the boy Kovic accidentally shot; the Mexican brothel scene of sex/love desperation, the drunken scene at the pool hall bar and the pretty girl's face he touches, and then the drunken, hate-filled rage against his mother, and of course the savage hospital scenes--these and some others were deeply moving and likely to haunt me for many years to come.

Of course, as usual, Oliver Stone's political message weighed heavily upon his artistic purpose. Straight-laced conservatives will find his portrait of America one-sided and offensive and something they'd rather forget. But I imagine that the guys who fought in Vietnam and managed to get back somehow and see this movie, will find it redemptive. Certainly to watch Ron Kovic, just an ordinary Joe who believed in his country and the sentiments of John Wayne movies and comic book heroics, go from a depressed, enraged, drug-addled waste of a human being to an enlightened, focused, articulate, and ultimately triumphant spokesman for the anti-war movement, for veterans, and the disabled was wonderful to see. As Stone reminds us, Kovic really did become the hero that his misguided mother dreamed he would be.

No other Vietnam war movie haunts me like this one. There is something about coming back less than whole that is worse than not coming back at all that eats away at our consciousness. And yet in the end there is here displayed the triumph of the human will and a story about how a man might find redemption in the most deplorable of circumstances.

Another addition to our family library, which we keep filled with books that entertain and/or educate.

This movie, however, is not for the younger kids nor for the weak of heart, but for older members of the family, especially kids who might have fallen for the "John Wayne is cool" view point of war (or in our day, perhaps Mortal Kombat is cool view point of life) OR the young pacifist who believes that those who go to war are bad.

We're all so tenderly human, and that's what this movie shows. The reason some find this depressing, I think, is that it shows the loss of innocence of the man who wrote this autobiography, Ron Kovic, who goes to war during the Vietnam era longing to be a hero, and returns damaged emotionally and physically, and receives the welcome of a baby-killer.

Note: When the book version of this movie was due to come out, back in the 70's, I was working in a bookstore. Long-haired ex-vets would come in, looking for the book and I (duh) didn't understand why they were so enthusiastic. The book was the first attention given to what the war experience did to those who fought in it, which later opened the doors for WWII veterans to be able to talk about the emotional horrors of war.

I read the book, and years later watched the movie - either of these are incredible experiences - if you like Saving Private Ryan, you will want to watch this movie, too.

When this movie was released in 1989, I had been married for the second time for one year. I was involved in marriage, family, career and had left the 60s behind for awhile. I had the privilege of doing that; Ron Kovic could not. Reading the reviews at that time, I knew this movie would be too intense for me, and a few years later, when my husband would suffer a major stroke and become partially paralyzed himself, causing both of us to endure years of rehabilitation, I deliberately avoided the movie whenever it aired on TV. What I had glimpsed was too raw and authentic--I had enough of that in my own life.

But I watched it tonight on AMC and marvelled at the film--Stone's brilliant directing, Kovic's terrible honesty about his journey, Cruise's willingness to "go there." This is perhaps Stone's greatest movie, thoughtful to the tiniest artistic detail; director is too shallow a title for his achievement with this film. Kovic--it is his story that inspires me to write this review. Three years after my husband died--he lived nearly 10 years with his disability--I understood all too well Kovic's path. The fact that he kept going, that he didn't give up even when life was dark, painful, and utterly bizarre is simply amazing. Having to face "aloneness" and "dependence" and life without "equipment" is the most terrifying experience one can deal with. My husband had me. He knew he was loved everyday. Ron had none of that, but, thank God, he found a community and a mission--one that he sought and created. What kind of strength is that? It comes only when you face that awful test in life that none of us wants, that we'll do anything to avoid. Those who have encountered it are either dead by choice or alive and transformed. Kovic went through it, came out the other end, and I'm in awe.

To date, no one has evoked the turbulent realities of life during the sixties as well as babyboomer Oliver Stone. His heart-rending portrayal of the fate of a naive young man out to imitate the heroic exploits of screen icons John Wayne and Audie Murphy is a modern classic, a cautionary tale of the horrible consequences of blindly trusting the government to do what is is right by this young man and hundreds of thousands just like him. Kovics enlists in the Marines and volunteers for duty in Vietnam, thereby fatefully and tragically changing the arc of his young life as a result. While this true story based on the best-selling autobiography of disabled Vietnam vet Ron Kovics is first and foremost Kovics' personal story, it is also very much the story of the Vietnam war's aftermath, of its bounty brought home, and the movie quite accurately depicts its searing impacts on the lives of all the survivors of the war itself (whether direct participants or not) and the fractious, violent and sometimes bloody clash between the traditional true believers on the one hand and a whole range of thoughtful dissenters on the other against continuation of the war. Tom Cruise is superb here, and the uncensored truth of the times and trials and wracking search for a new sort of meaningful balance in his new life of permanent disability if a deep dark look at the realities of what the war did to millions of young men who wanted nothing more than to honorably serve their country. This is a terrific movie, and one that deserved all the acclaim and awards it won for everyone involved. Two thumbs up from this aisle seat for "Born On The Fourth Of July".

Regardless of what your politics are - or what you think of Oliver Stone's politics - Born on the Fourth of July, which is based on a gritty memoir by Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic, is an engrossing movie, not least because of Tom Cruise's performance. Up until starring in this movie, he was always acting as some young hot shot - an attorney, a pool player, a car dealer, it doesn't matter - someone young and arrogant and hot-headed who usually wound up committing himself reluctantly to a greater cause. Here he begins the movie as an idealistic teenager aspiring to serve his country and winds up totally unravelled, in what is one of his most wild and tortured performances. It's incredible (and very disturbing) to watch. Here is one of the rawest portrayals of a man struggling to deal with the impact that war has had on his life.

This is a movie from Oliver Stone based on The brutality of Vietnam, and how the soldiers who fought paid the most dearly. This film stars Tom Cruise as Kovic, whose gunshot embittered by neglect in a veteran's hospital and by the reality being in an America where most of America doesn't seem to even care about the war. He soon leaves the veteran's hospital to return home where he soon falls into deep depression and alcholism. After being home for just a short while he heads to Mexico and searches for something other than neglect. While in Mexico he discovers there that he can never satisfy a woman sexually. Kovic joins the Vietnam movement of antiwar protest, and a appearance at the 1976 Democratic National Covention. This is a great movie that I glady give 5 thumbs up and, recommend this younger generation that thinks war is cool to watch. Oliver Stone does it again with one of his wonderful movies.

In PLATOON, director Oliver Stone showed us the horrors of the Vietnam war from ground zero. Three years after that, with BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY, he takes us to what the war did to America and has us see it through the eyes of another Vietnam vet, Ron Kovic, who co-wrote the screenplay with Stone from his own 1976 memoir. Tom Cruise portrays Kovic, and gives one of the best onscreen performances of modern times.

Kovic was a kid from Massapequa, New York who grew up believing in the post-World War II beliefs of American superiority, anticommunism, and John Wayne, and who wanted to serve his country. But in Vietnam, he had the tragic misfortune of being shot by a VC bullet and paralysed from the waist down. He would now never be able to have children, and he would never walk again. Like a lot of Vietnam vets, he was met either with indifference or hostility to his suffering. He became embittered and hostile in his own way.

But he soon learned that his experience could be used for a greater purpose than war: to educate Americans about the realities behind the myths that helped tear America apart during the 1960s and 1970s.

Although a long film at 140 minutes plus, BORN is a stunning look not only at Kovic's personal experiences, but the experiences of our nation when we moved from braggadocio and John Wayne patriotism to cynicism and political violence. Never in this movie do Stone or Kovic ever say that Vietnam vets didn't serve their country proud. They do, however, indict the culture of paranoia and anticommunism that worshipped a supposed "patriot" like John Wayne, who NEVER saw any combat action in his life. And on that count, they must be commended fully.

It is an honor to serve one's country, but when you don't know the truth about what you're supposedly fighting for, the results can be devastating. That is what Stone and Kovic say was wrong with America's Vietnam experience, and I can't help but believe they were 200% right.

Oliver Stone gives Cruise his best role as Ron Kovic in "Born on the Fourth of July." Cruise forgoes his easy way out with a smile and shows (as he has in several other films) he really has acting chops.

It is impossible not to be moved by Cruise's inhabiting the life of Ron Kovic and to feel the pain, the displacement and abandonment Kovic - and thousands of other soldiers - must have felt. That Kovic was a patriot, a hero actually born on the 4th of July makes his outspoken acts of anti-war activism resonate all the more.

Those - like me - who have accused this actor of not being to act his way out of the proverbial paper bag should take a look at Mr. Cruise here. Watching his Kovic from idealistic young man, to disenchanted hero, to miserable self-pitying to inspiration and a voice the voice of realism for a generation realist will be nothing less than wowed. At each step, Cruise puts Kovic first and foremost and makes believable every emotion. There is more than self-pity when, knowing how he's going to spend the balance of his life he cries "who will love me?" It will break your heart and fill you with rage all at once.

The supporting cast, under Stone's direction bring alive a harrowing story - a true story.

The extras on this special wide screen version are not worth shouting about - but are worth noting. As is standard with many DVD's these days the director gives an informative narration during the film which is worth listening to, but (in my opinion) inteferes with the film (unless you watch it twice in a row).

Worthwhile and recommended.

This is a great towering and emotionally devastating film that has something important to say not only about the Viet Nam war but also about war in general and even the war protesters. In fact it's easy to take this movie as more of an anti-war statement than as a specific slap at Viet Nam.

From the beginning we see veterans marred and disabled cringing at the pop of a gun. Then later we see Tom Cruise actually wondering if anything was worth the loss of his body. Stone makes it clear that while the men that fight wars are heroes, war is anything but heroic: At times it's an ugly necessity. The crime of Viet Nam is that it wasn't a necessity. Unlike Stone, I do believe the US got into the war with the best intentions but the war did not really fit the definition of a "must fight".

The script challenges everyone. The hypocrisy of the United States government is exposed by the hospital scenes. They ask us to honor the Vets yet treat them like garbage. At the University Stone goes even further showing a government that purports to fight for freedom a world away yet shuts down expression here. The apathy of the American public is also taken to task. No one treats Kovic or his fellow vets with any sort of compassion. Even Kovic's girlfriend- the war protester- only wants to use him for her own ends. Fighting the war is just a cause to her and she's forgotten the reasons for the battle.

Stone makes all these points in the most artful way possible. This a technically dazzling piece of work beautifully photographed, (Stone's judicious of slow motion gives the film an almost lyrical power.) edited, scored (by John Williams) and acted by almost everyone in the cast. Cruise of course is the standout. He doesn't always give the most technically accomplished performance, hurrying a few too many of his lines, but he makes up for it with an almost brutal emotionalism. By the time he and Stone finish with you you're spent inside.

Like all Stone films this one has flaws. I never understood the scene where Kovic meets with the family of the boy he killed. It's not in the book and lessens our sympathy for the Kovic character. We understand why Kovic does it psychologically but it makes him seem selfish. The family would have been better off not knowing what happened. Also there are Stone's inaccuracies and anachronisms. Though they are relatively few and most are minor, there are few that undercut the director's credibility. The chief villain here is the scene at the Republican Convention. Extracted from reality it makes a powerful statement about Kovic, the war and the government's attitude towards the veterans. Knowing it didn't happen dampens some of that power. But if you can pull yourself away from the history books even this works since many veterans probably faced that kind of treatment from those that were supposed to be honor them though not at the Republican Convention.

Finally, I worry about Stone's penchant to topple over into propaganda. Kovic's speech at the convention, while it subtly hits on the concept of war and this war in particular, makes you wonder if Stone's sees Kovics journey as simply a trip to the right side of the argument: Stone's side. But this is not a treatise this is a movie and where movies count emotional power, provocative ideas and riveting entertainment this one hits the mark.

Look for Seinfeld's Wayne Knight, Charmed's Holly Marie Combs, Stephen Baldwin and the guy who played Joey on Roc all in small roles.