PLATOON: The Real Story

Revealing the line between historical fact and Hollywood fiction, this documentary puts many of the film’s key scenes to the test, evaluating how well they reflected the realities of the war and, sometimes, whether they actually could have happened at all. Writer and director Oliver Stone describes how the movie drew directly from his own experiences as a soldier in Vietnam, while dramatic re-creations of scenes from the film, testimony from other Vietnam veterans, commentary from historians, archival film and audio footage, and an interview with cast member Willem Dafoe shed light on what American troops went through and how that influenced the course of the war. Note: battle violence, two brief instances of profanity.