The second of three films by co-writer/director Oliver Stone to explore the effects of the Vietnam War (Platoon and Heaven and Earth are the others), Born On The Fourth Of July tells the true story of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise), a patriotic, All-American small town athlete who shocks his family by enlisting with the Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. Once he is overseas, however, Kovic's gung-ho enthusiasm turns to horror and confusion when he accidentally kills one of his own men in a firefight.
His downfall is furthered by a bullet wound that leaves him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns home, spends an appalling, nightmarish stint in a veterans' hospital, and follows an increasingly disillusioned and fragmented path that ultimately leaves him drunk and dissolute in Mexico. However, Kovic somehow turns himself around and pulls his life together, becoming an outspoken anti-war activist in the process. The film is long but emotionally powerful; many consider it Stone's best work and Cruise's best performance. Both were nominated for Oscars, as was the film itself, but only Stone, who co-wrote the film with Kovic from the latter's book, won for Best Director. ~ Don Kaye, Rovi
Though departing from the source material, Ron Kovic's stirring chronicle of his Vietnam experience, this film is a good companion piece to Oliver Stone's Oscar-winner Platoon, showcasing star Tom Cruise in one of his most dramatic performances.
This is a sad case of a film with high and noble intentions that features great dramatic performances, but it ends up being a superficial epic, diluted, limited, and strangely unmoving.
Cruise pulls out all the stops in his visceral portrayal of a guy who goes from trusting and unthinking patriot to wounded and wondering casualty of the Vietnam War. Certainly one of the very best of this genre, it's core point simply a question : when has blind obedience ever been an American ideal?
A biopic based on the life of Ron Kovic, an idealistic poster boy for the American dream who volunteered for Vietnam only to return home to a different world both traumatized and paralysed. I've never been a big fan of Tom Cruise, but he gives the performance of his career as the Vietnam vet who became the spokesman of
a disenfranchised generation. Being based upon Kovic's own book the film is a very personal journey and as such is a little episodic, often resembling one of those "triumph of courage" daytime telemovies rather than the overt politicism of many of Stone's other films of the time. It also limits his Vietnam experiences to the bare minimum which means that it lacks both the context and outright anger of Salvador and the emotional drama of Platoon leaving something of a half way house between the two. The supporting cast also don't get much of a look in so it feels a little superficial but it is an intelligent, well made film carried by a strong central performance. It does lack the power of Stone's best work however.
Ron Kovic: It's my leg! I want my leg, you understand? Can't you understand that? All's I'm sayin' is that I want to be treated like a human being! I fought for my country! I am a Vietnam veteran! I fought for my country!
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