Born on the Fourth of July

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.


An eye-opener   June 17, 2000
Quaker Annie
14 out of 15 found this review helpful

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.


Penetrating Look At The Afternmath Of Vietnam!   August 25, 2000
Barron Laycock (Temple, New Hampshire United States)
10 out of 11 found this review helpful

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".


The Dark Side of War   September 14, 2003
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

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.


I couldn't watch this movie until now-16 years later!   December 19, 2005
Mack E. Tan (USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful


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.