Comments about ‘Born on the Fourth of July’

Tom Cruise's finest body of work to date in my opinion, a
moving performance in which he portrays a young man
fiercely patriotic to his country. He enlists & serves in
the Vietnam War in which his innocence is shattered.
Surviving the war with serious injuries that leave him
paralysed, he returns home to a callous reception in which
he and his fellow veterans are villified for their
participation. Left disoriented, hurt, & alienated in the
country he fought for, he realises his government has
abandoned him & his comrades. The politics & drama heat up
here on end as he & other veterans band together and fight
to be heard & above all, respected.

Oliver Stone is the master of politically driven dramas
immersed in a hotbed of conspiracies. Always
controversial, always powerful. Stone likes to crossover
to real life footage of events to correlate with his
story, adding scope & weight & perhaps most of all,
credibility. Whether Stone's interpretation of history is
faithfully reproduced is a matter of opinion. The music
will blow you away too, fantastically adding to the drama.
American patriotism at it's flamboyant best. Rent it, buy
it, see it!!

a young patriotic man enlists to serve in the vietnam war
channelling his youthful idealism into the notion of serving
his country. the injuries inflicted on him during this
service leave him virtually impotent and his first sexual
encounter is post vietnam in the tender mercies of a south
american prostitute trying to make the experience as
meaningful as possible for him. the real cost of war as it
had to be lived by him every day. emasculated sidelined. no
wonder he was pissed off. this film is a must for everyone
tempted by the gungho machismo of life in the armed
services.