|
| Born on the Fourth of July | 
| Category: Movie
Buy New: $2.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  84 reviews
Sales Rank: 10708
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 145 minutes
ASIN: B000ICXQR4
Theatrical Release Date: December 19, 1989
Release Date: October 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Amazing... April 18, 2005
5 out of 6 found this review helpful
Good movies entertain. They make you laugh and cry. Great movies leave a mark on you. You think about the movie, what it means, and you talk about it for days. It changes your perception of things on many levels. This is one those movies. I am still in awe of the movie that I have watched maybe 6 times. Oliver Stone and Tom Cruise have brought a brilliant story about the war to life.
First of, this is not exactly a war movie, but it revolves around a war. It shows the effects of the war to the people who were in it and the general public who have no idea what exactly is going on. This is a story of Ron Kovic, an all-American kid from Long Island. He is full of passion for his country and he believes in serving his country, not caring whether he dies in the process. He eagerly enrolls in the Marine Corp and before he knows it, he is sent to Vietnam fighting in the front line. Some things happen there that leaves a huge impact on Ron and also he was paralyzed from a battle with the communists. He finds himself in a hospital and they have to amputate his legs. He then returns home to find that not everyone sees eye to eye on the war situation in Vietnam, many look at him with embarassment and repulse. In an instant, he had gone from hero to zero.
What really grabbed me about this movie was the story. It doesn't show the war in detail, but more what the war does to it's soldiers and the people involved. It's amazing how they show things from an individual's point of view. It shows the terrible effects of war that you just cannot watch on CNN. Through this movie, it opened my eyes that wars do not just leave towns/cities in destruction or leave people killed...it also effects the people who survived. The trauma and the pain they go through. It's hard to just pick up where you left. And yeah, everyone will be there when things are going well, but who'll be left when things go awry? When you lose your legs and need nursing?
I have to say, kudos to Cruise for giving an Oscar-worthy performance. I honestly felt he deserved the statuette for this role. It's hard to imagine anyone else pulling of the part as perfectly as he did. From humble and innocent beginnings, to a torn and desperate man left scarred for life. You can feel the emotion he's going through all the way. It's not hard to imagine yourself doing the same if you were in his shoes. This role defined Tom Cruise as an actor, and he has definitely earned a place in my book as one of the best actors around. The movie also has a slew of talented actors but most appear in brief sequences but due to Cruise's brilliant performance, it doesn't really matter.
Oliver Stone is one of the great directors of our time (other than Alexander) so his direction of this movie is no surprise, it's practically flawless. He does it so well, each scene is classic and invokes emotion that movies rarely create. And the score of the movie by John Williams is also fantastic. The music that appears in the parade earlier on in the movie, when the war veterans are marching by with broken legs and arms...kinda like a preview of things to come, brilliant!
This movie will be remembered for a long time and it really makes you sad that wars are still going on around the world. You wish that those people could watch movies like this and realize that it destroys something more than nations or buildings, it destroys the very essence of life. To quote from Ron Kovic, "People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America". If you haven't watched this movie, you are missing something important in American cinema.
The second-best movie of all time. April 14, 2005
Based on the autobiography of Ron Kovic, this heart-wrenching, painful film is so extremely well done that if it were steak it would be burnt beyond recognition. Stone's directing, for which he won an Oscar, is flawless.
In his role, Tom Cruise plays a young, ambitious, patriotic Ron Kovic, itching to serve in Vietnam and fight for Democracy and American values. He leaves behind his girlfriend and his family for a chaotic, hellish war. His platoon kills women and children. With the heat and dust muddling his vision and the steady staccato of gunshots impairing his senses, Kovic fatally shoots one of his own men. On a similar day, a half-crazed, expletive-screaming Kovic is wounded. At a hospital overrun by the dying, Kovic's last rights are administered. You can see everything on Cruise's face: guilt, pain, fear and acceptance of death.
But he doesn't die; instead, he returns home a paralyzed misfit. His agonizing trials at home and in Mexico, where he goes to recuperate, follow. And just when it seems that Kovic will never overcome the painful memory of Vietnam and many missed opportunities, he realizes that bravery isn't jumping in uninformed to the misguided war of attrition. Ron Kovic shows what it is to be a true American: to fight for the truth.
 This movie sucks March 26, 2005
9 out of 31 found this review helpful
This is one of the most pointless movies that I have ever seen. I guess one of the points to the movie that I missed was that I was supposed to feel sorry for Ron throughout the movie. The only time I ever felt sorry for him was when he was stuck in the hospital and no one took care of him. With the exception of him becoming disabled and was in the hospital, I felt that he brought a lot of his troubles on himself.
Another point to this movie that I missed was that his being disabled and fighting in a terrible war gave him an excuse to do whatever he wanted. Rather than getting a job or doing something useful, he drank, told his sad story to anyone who wanted to listen, and cussed at his parents who take care of him. Oh yeah, he took a trip to Mexico to be touched by a hooker and fought with another disabled vet.
The third point that I missed was that Ron changed his view on the war because of everything that he suffered. Going back to point number one I felt that he brought a lot of the troubles on himself. Before he went on his trip to Mexico, his girlfriend rejectes him because he is disabled and doesn't agree with her views on the war. The movie also shows his brother arguing with him over the war.
The last point that I missed in the movie was that I am supposed to think that Ron found some kind of purpose in his life by speaking out against the war. So what? He does it because of point number three. Ron has only changed his views on the war but he is still the same selfish person that he was before the war. I'd be really impressed if he did something for someone else or thought about someone else.
So unless you agree with what the director is trying to say-don't watch this movie because it is pointless.
 Reality hurts February 22, 2005
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
When you see a war veteran campaigning against the very war in which he was willing to die once, you begin to have second thoughts about the intent behind the war. Many Americans went deep into this deliberation when veterans like Ron Kovic went on record questioning the wisdom behind US's offensive against Vietnam. Regardless of historical outcome of the war, the question will haunt USA forever -was the Vietnam War a noble and just cause. Your answer could be anything depending upon your political and ideological preferences, but the reality of thousands who lost their lives and limbs continues to hurt.
Oliver Stone's Born on Fourth of July - based on the true story of Ron Kovic - takes the audience through the triumph and trauma of a crusader who went from one side of the war debate to the other. Ron wanted to fight for his country and stop the evil force of communism dead in its tracks. He went to Vietnam to defend his nation but came back soon, injured and doomed to suffer further. In the inadequately equipped hospital, his dreamer instincts crashed against the harsh realities of political ambivalence, not for the first time though.
Over next eight years that are depicted in this masterpiece, the character of Ron Kovic (played by Tom Cruise with unprecedented brilliance) goes through the trauma of knowing that no one will "love him now", that even his own sibling is not on the same side of ideology, that the government had more pressing issues than taking good care of war veterans, that his countrymen did not necessarily endorse of his view point. The reality that he killed a soldier from his own army, the reality that he was the unfortunate one to butcher children and women in Vietnam, the reality that he would not be able to father a child, the reality of his realization that his government had made a wrong case for the war - it all kept gnawing at his conscience. It kept gnawing him until he opened up to speak about what was wrong about this war. Thus `ended' the patriotic fervor of a driven person, but he continued his passion as an antiwar activist.
Born on Fourth of July may have been the story of one Ron Kovic, but there are many others whose sentiments would echo with this veteran's. At the end, there is no easy way out of this debate. War always comes with its baggage of pain, trauma and hurt. Whether Vietnam was a mistake or not - the arguments would go on forever. So would the history of people who aspired to be motivated by JFK's historical urge - Ask not what your country can do for you, See what you can do for your country - only to realize that in every war there is only one casualty - the human spirit. The pangs of this reality hurt, just does as their own reality.
Limey Vision February 9, 2005
3 out of 12 found this review helpful
Flint Westwood Here - its late here in Limey Land - the 51st State of the US of A. I am quite shattered at this stage. As for Mr Cruise, he ROCKED in this movie. The beard never suited him though, although, he looked much better with a beard in Collateral. This was his mistake, not getting his beard trimmed. I think he must have thought he was a hippy at the time. Led Zep all looked like extras from Catweasle around 1972. Whats Catweasle I hear you Yankees cry. Its a Brit show about a crazy looking wizard from the 13th Century. Cruise's beard looks just like Catweasle's. Perhaps Cruise should have been a time traveller like Dr Who. Never mind.
FLCW 9.2.2005
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
