Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
Directed by Oliver Stone
Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.
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What critics compared Born on the Fourth of July to
It's a perpetual tale of innocence lost: The wounded warrior turning to anti-war activism (Born on the Fourth of July), the inspiring President felled by conspirators in Dallas (JFK), the hungry trader consumed by a rigged financial system (Wall Street).
Like the best Stone films—“Platoon,” “Born on the Fourth of July,” “Wall Street”—“Snowden” is the story of a young idealist who suffers a moral crisis compounded by Oedipal fury against the father figure in whom he has lost faith.
And that’s a problem for this filmmaker, somewhat more comfortable with ‘Nam (Platoon, Born On The Fourth Of July, Heaven & Earth), rock and roll (The Doors), the Kennedy assassination (JFK), serial killers (Natural Born Killers), 9/11 (World Trade Center) and drug-related chainsaw murders (Savages).
Like most Oliver Stone pictures, it’s a parable of disillusionment, with Edward Snowden taking his place along Born On The Fourth Of July’s Ron Kovic and JFK’s Jim Garrison as men who love their country so much they risk everything by speaking out to try and save it from itself.
By tackling the story of Edward Snowden, the conservative, buttoned-up CIA analyst and self-proclaimed patriot who blew the whistle on the U.S. government’s massive surveillance of its own citizens, Stone places himself solidly back in the kind of territory he mined so brilliantly in some of his very best films: JFK, Born on the Fourth of July and Nixon.
It’s a classic political conversion narrative, not unlike Stone’s Born on the Fourth of July and even Wall Street.
Veterans Day: 14 Real-Life Soldiers Portrayed in Film (Photos) Tom Cruise as Ron Kovacs in "Born on the Fourth of July" George C. Scott as George S. Patton in "Patton" Christian Bale as Dieter Dengler in "Rescue Dawn" Mark Wahlberg as Marcus Luttrell in "Lone Survivor" Real-life veteran R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in "Full Metal Jacket" Real-life veteran Dale Dye as Captain Harris in "Platoon" Real-life war hero Audie Murphy as Audie Murphy in "To Hell and Back" Jeremy Renner as Sgt.
American Sniper doesn't glorify what Kyle did, but like the angrier Born on the Fourth of July makes clear why he did it.
Unfortunately, the movie stalls during its final twenty minutes as it attempts to switch gears and present a theme that other films (like Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July and the aforementioned Brothers) have done better.
Punctuated by blink-and-you'll-miss-them moments of hallucinatory artistry, it's also Stone at his best, breaking from his self-assumed role as big-screen provocateur ("JFK," "Natural Born Killers") and getting back to telling visceral, unflinching stories ("Platoon," "Born on the Fourth of July") that combine two of his favorite topics: illegal drug use and the psychic toll of military service.
There are two, maybe three, Oliver Stones: the revisionist historian who drives Washington literalists batty with such lurid re-imaginings as “ JFK ” and “ Nixon ,” the straight-ahead mainstream auteur who limns the American experience in such magisterial dramas as “ Born on the Fourth of July ” and “ Platoon ,” and the all-to-the-wall hellion who extrudes that same experience through hallucinatory dreamscapes and lurid violence in genre films such as “ Natural Born Killers .”
He returns to bloody fine form with “Savages,” a sexy, vicious and altogether riveting thriller that’s the “Born on the Fourth of July” director’s best movie in years.
His latest project, an adaptation of a Don Winslow novel, is far removed from the politically charged arena of JFK, Platoon and Born on the Fourth of July.
Watch any of these films and the only thing they will lead a viewer to wonder is what happened to the radicalized, trailblazing filmmaker responsible for modern classics such as 1986's "Platoon," 1989's "Born on the Fourth of July," 1991's "JFK," and 1994's "Natural Born Killers."
"Born on the Fourth of July," "The Doors," "JFK," "Natural Born Killers," "Nixon," "Any Given Sunday"--these were bold, controversial and visionary works produced at a time when such things were generally considered to be the exception to the Hollywood and no matter what you may have thought about the films themselves, it cannot be denied that when you came out of them, you knew that you had just seen a Movie in all its risky glory and not just another inflated television episode of the kind that had begun clogging the multiplexes in greater and greater numbers.
Compare Norton to Tom Cruise in the early scenes of Born on the Fourth of July (1989), in which the actor telegraphs like crazy that his character’s jingoistic declarations are bull.
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With six credited editors, a list that includes Oscar-winners Tom Cross ( Whiplash ) and Joe Hutshing ( J.F.K. , Born on the Fourth of July ) and a 105-minute running time that feels much shorter than it actually is, there is a bit of a rushed quality that’s difficult to ignore.
Adapting Gatsby just so you can recreate the party scenes is like remaking Born on the Fourth of July for the war scenes.
Most modern war movies – from Platoon to Born on the Fourth of July to Saving Private Ryan - have dealt with the mental and physical toll that war takes on soldiers.
Director James Mangold (Kate & Leopold, Girl, Interrupted) and editor David Brenner (Born on the Fourth of July, The Patriot) grab you at the beginning, and keep things interesting enough to never let you go.
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There is the innocent-prisoner episode, with Ashton getting spat on by the inmates, the heroin-junkie episode, with the moist-eyed Ashton giving impassioned speeches, and most painfully, the Born on the Fourth of July episode, with Ashton as a wheelchair bound cripple trying to commit suicide in the bathtub.
Sure, movies made about the Vietnam War showed a darker side of the campaign (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July, Full Metal Jacket) but they were tinged with a sense of madness, the psychology of being a soldier, and the pain of denial over the botched campaign.