A Few Good Men Rhetorical Analysis

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Stone presents the audience one of the extreme portrayals of morality, which is betrayal. This was showcased in the scene where the platoon gets ambushed by the Vietcong in the church ruins. During the heated battle between the platoon and the Vietcong, when Sergeant Elias tells Barnes that he needs three men to roll up the flank, Barnes disapproves and yells at him saying, “You don’t tell me how to run my war, Elias!” Despite this, Elias refuses his disapproval and goes his own way based on his plan. Both Elias and Barnes have a same goal, which is focusing on the mission and then accomplishing it, and also attempting to bring as many of their own platoon’s soldiers back to the base as possible without any casualties. Even if they are in the…show more content…
After the final battle, some survivors, most notably Francis, one of the platoon soldiers, were purposefully willing to injure themselves in order to go back home or to the hospital. Some characters were implied that they did not want to be a part of the war anymore. This is especially shown in Sergeant Red O’Neill, who found out that he has to be in the second platoon even after the final battle. Before the news, he was glad and confident about himself after surviving the battle, but his expressions immediately become opposite after hearing about it, showing the audience that he never really felt proud about himself as a soldier and did not have any intentions of repeating history once more. When Taylor was reflecting upon his experience with his platoon, he felt that at times he was the “child born of those two fathers,” meaning Elias and Barnes, but hopes to rebuild in the future and teach others about what he and fellow soldiers have experienced. This thought did not just come from Taylor, but also from Oliver Stone himself. Even though the war was stuck with him, Taylor wanted to gain self-control back again. However, around the time of the Vietnam War, there was a divide of US citizens who have either supported the war or opposed it, and soldiers were not as welcome as the ones in the previous wars,…show more content…
The late Roger Ebert said in his review that this “is the film that, in a curious way, should have been made before any of the others,” which he referenced Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter. In terms of how Oliver Stone wanted to make his film with more realism, this is one of the logical ways of presenting the true nature of Vietnam War to the audience. But on the other way around, releasing Platoon after these two movies mentioned above can also be considered an effective method, since it helps the audience reestablish their perceptions of Vietnam War that separate from past Vietnam War-related movies. Also, while it can be agreed that the movie is “simply a memory of what it seemed like at the time to [Oliver Stone],” Stone is still conveying a message of antiwar elements that there are no heroes of war, no matter what they try to achieve or do to be respected. Leo Cawley (1944-1911), an ex-Marine Corps soldier who served in front lines in the Vietnam War, approached this film in an unexpectedly approved manner, which is usually unlikely, considering the flaws the experts try to emphasize regardless of the movie’s greatness. He responded that the movie achieve some kind of success by “successfully [immersing] you in a lifelike situation, physical or moral.” In addition, Cawley
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