Memorable, crazy movie

Absolutely the worst movie.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Continuing my plan to watch every Tom Cruise movie in order, I come to Born On The 4th Of July (1988)Plot In A Paragraph: The biography of Ron Kovic (Crusie) Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.Anyone who thought Cruise was just a pretty boy, who could not act, were proved wrong with this powerful movie. He was rightly nominated for an Oscar, and I don't think there will have been too many complaining had he won. He really showcased his acting chops here. The movie was nominated for 8 Oscars winning 2. Best Film Editing and Best Director for Oliver Stone. I can see why this powerful movie is not to everyone's taste. It certainly isn't one I watch a lot, but that doesn't mean it is not a brilliant piece of movie-making. This is the first serious drama Cruise has not had a more famous co lead, and he does not disappoint. If anyone has not seen this movie I urge you to check it out!! The battle scenes are exactly how I imagine the confusion of gunfight in a war zone to be and the scenes in the hospital are brutally honest in their horror. It could have been easy for Cruise to fall into a number of traps with this performance and he doesn't!! Similar with Stone, his direction could have wondered into other directions, but it doesn't!! It sticks true to the heart of its story!! As painful as it is. It's interesting that the movie poster has a youthful Cruise on it, as it's not how he looks for the majority of the movie. Born On The Fourth Of July grossed $70 million at the domestic box office, to end the year the 17th highest grossing movie of 1989.

The first movie I saw that stars Tom Cruise is A Few Good Men. I hated that movie, and I think Tom Cruise is terrible in it. The major reason for me to hate that film is the blatantly simple thematic message of patriotism, and I thought Tom Cruise was bad because his character was just an archetype already used in thousands of other pictures and books before. The things I hate about A Few Good Men made me nervous in the first twenty minutes of Born On the Fourth of July, because it seems that this is another one of those movies that boast about the American patriotism simple-mindedly, with a most ordinary lead character giving out okay performance. Thank god the movie proved me wrong. Tom Cruise is amazing in this movie. It takes about five minutes to know if someone is talented in acting, and Tom Cruise has about ten of those five minutes in the movie. I don't know any other character's name, but most are pretty good. Another thing about the characters is that this is a very character-driven story, which makes every other character apart from Tom Cruise having only a minor role. This might be the reason for people to think the movie is not very fleshed out, because not even one character stays to the end: his first love leaves him, his fellow soldiers either die or go missing, his friends only appear from scene to scene, and his parents disappear towards the end. However, all the characters have clear motivations, and their appearance always helps convey the thematic message. The camera work is astonishing. The film plays with the lighting very well, to the point of exemplary. Also the director loves to use hand-held extreme close-up, and most of them are very well-handled. I would say one or two scenes do not work. The ending is obviously rushed, but it does not ruin the movie. Overall I would have one point off for the problems, and I definitely recommend it as a war/identity/patriotism genre movie.

Is there any just war? A question that can be present in this movie. A war fought 20,000 kms away from one's country might be patriotic? A war fought only for political, economic or ideological reasons can be just? An American young man is deeply patriotic and imbued with all the conventional values concerning war, joins voluntarily the Marine Force and goes to Vietnam as a sergeant. After being wounded in combat he becomes quadriplegic and returns home on a wheelchair after having spent some time in a hospital for veterans where conditions are appallingly bad even with rats running freely around. Anyway he is still defending those patriotic conventional values for what he thinks he had fought in war. However after meeting a girl whom he knew in their youth and whom he loved and seeing her being a member of an activist group against American fighting in Vietnam and seeing the police charging them violently he begins to take conscience of the real injustice of that war. After several vicissitudes of moral degradation that include a familiar conflict at home, alcoholism and an exile to a home for veterans in Mexico by a village where there is an atmosphere of alcohol, gambling and prostitution, he abandons all this and returns to USA where he joins the activist movement against war and publishes a book with his autobiography. Everything is narrated with great image and dialogue realism. The only flaw in my opinion is the not so good performance of Tom Cruise whom I never considered a very good actor and seems not very authentic, abusing some times of histrionic hysterism. Anyway a movie that can be considered a strong libel not only against the Vietnam war but against all wars.

The biography of Ron Kovic. Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for. Born on the 4th of July is kinda a very hard movie to sit threw not because it's bad or anything it's a great film it's just hard to sit threw the whole damn thing watching Ron Kovic (Cruise) paralyzed in a wheel chair with some people making fun of him without respecting him and what he sacrificed for his country and Tom Cruise gives an amazing performance and as the years go by you feel more for this guy and watching him like this is very sad and although the whole cast is good i think Oliver Stone did the best job with Tom Cruise mostly and if you like him as an actor and like this kind of movies you will not be disappointed.