Over this Independence Day weekend, I re-watched Oliver Stone’s “Born On The Fourth Of July,” which I hadn’t seen since it was released in 1989.
It starred a then-27-year-old Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, who grew up in Massapequa, Long Island, in the 1960s. Raised by a religious mother and patriotic father, teenage Kovic bought into the US government’s propaganda about Vietnam so much that when a Marine recruiting officer (Tom Berenger) spoke at his high school, Kovic became hell-bent on joining up and being deployed there, willing to “die for his country.”
But once he got to Vietnam, he discovered the hellish truth about war. In an ambush, while several of his colleagues were killed (including one mistakenly shot by Kovic), he was wounded and became paralyzed from the waist down.
To Stone’s credit, the movie spent quite a bit of time showing the horrible conditions wounded US soldiers faced in VA hospitals, which were disgusting, dirty, and disgraceful in every way (just as Hal Ashby had done a decade earlier in “Coming Home”). That experience was the beginning of Kovic’s eyes opening to reality as he matured from a gung-ho teenager to an angry anti-war protestor and effective advocate for ending US involvement in Vietnam.
“Born On The Fourth Of July” also served as a reminder that, before he became the world’s highest-paid stuntman, Cruise was a terrific actor. The supporting cast was damned good, too (e.g. Willem Dafoe, Frank Whaley, Kyra Sedgwick).
I don’t love every movie Oliver Stone has made, but “Born On The Fourth Of July” remains among his best. Since it’s been so long since its original release, I’m adding it to my Movies You Might Not Know list.