X
- 1989
- R
- Universal Pictures
- 2 h 25 m
- 1989
- R
- Universal Pictures
- 2 h 25 m
Summary Based on a true story, the film follows the young Ron Kovic from a zealous teen who eagerly volunteers for the Vietnam War, to an embittered veteran paralyzed from the mid-chest down. Deeply in love with his country, Kovic returned to an environment vastly different from the one he left, and struggled before emerging as a brave new voice...
Directed By: Oliver Stone
Written By: Ron Kovic, Oliver Stone
- 1989
- R
- Universal Pictures
- 2 h 25 m
- 1989
- R
- Universal Pictures
- 2 h 25 m
Born on the Fourth of July
75
7.7
Where to Watch
Summary Based on a true story, the film follows the young Ron Kovic from a zealous teen who eagerly volunteers for the Vietnam War, to an embittered veteran paralyzed from the mid-chest down. Deeply in love with his country, Kovic returned to an environment vastly different from the one he left, and struggled before emerging as a brave new voice...
Directed By: Oliver Stone
Written By: Ron Kovic, Oliver Stone
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
75
63% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
38% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Metascore
Generally Favorable
Based on 16 Critic Reviews
75
63% Positive
10 Reviews
10 Reviews
38% Mixed
6 Reviews
6 Reviews
0% Negative
0 Reviews
0 Reviews
Stone's feisty, intensely personal style of film making is well-known. With Born on the Fourth of July we are treated to a poignant, spirited and captivating - for the broken heartedness of it all - performance by Tom Cruise. [25 Dec 1989, p.E1]
It is a film of enormous visceral power with, in the central role, a performance by Tom Cruise that defines everything that is best about the movie.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 92 User Ratings
7.7
80% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
17% Mixed
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
2% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 92 User Ratings
7.7
80% Positive
74 Ratings
74 Ratings
17% Mixed
16 Ratings
16 Ratings
2% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
What a performance by Tom Cruise and also what a story. Surely one of the best anti-war movie of all time, that doesnt even show much of the war itself.
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Based on life of Sargent Ron Kovik, who for his love to his country, fought against an invisible enemy in an unfair, unwanted and cruel war, and come back home embittered and crippled. Worth to see due a mature Tom Cruise in his best role in career.
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Some will find it overly long, but with such a pivotal performance by Cruise and a veritable platoon of Hollywood elite supporting, who can begrudge a bit more screen time?
Never the most subtle of directors Oliver Stone brings a jackhammer brutality to Born on the Fourth that the material no longer needs. [22 Dec 1989, p.C1]
Possibly because Stone empathizes so enormously with co-writer Kovic, who came back from Vietnam at the age of 21 paralyzed from the chest down, the director has lost the specificity that made "Platoon" so electrifying. In its place he uses bombast, overkill, bullying. His scenes, and their ironic juxtapositioning, explode like land mines. [20 Dec 1989, p.1]
for all its flaws, Born on the Fourth of July provides the final proof that Tom Cruise is the real thing-a movie star with all the natural, unforced ability to connect with an audience that the title implies. [20 Dec 1989, p.1]
Born on the Fourth of July would be merely a hilariously inept gathering of Vietnam War movie cliches. Instead it is an unrelenting series of dramatic blows; almost every scene packs violence, sleaze, screamed rage and an ear-splitting music with headbutt force. For someone who despises the military, Mr. Stone is quite bellicose. [21 Dec 1989, p.1]
Born on the Fourth of July. There shouldn't be wars. Tom Cruise's superb acting deserves applause. The movie perfectly showed all the horrors that occur during the war and what they lead to.
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This film tells a true story: the biography and struggle of Ron Kovic, a young man who went to the Vietnam war inflated with patriotism and returned paralyzed, invalid and angry. Unlike many others, who have spent this anger and frustration in addictive ways of living, Ron has decided to tell the truth about war, and what it can do in the lives of those who pass through it. Booed and insulted, he became one of the most critical voices of US participation in Vietnam War, and one of the great activists for world peace.
The script has little to criticize. Very faithful to the autobiographical book written by Kovic himself, it simply transposes to the canvas, in full colors, what he has always described. I liked the way the film portrays Kovic's family, with all its exacerbated conservatism, the dogmatism of those who already have a life path traced from birth to death.
I confess that I don't like Tom Cruise at all, but I must admit that he is a talented actor, when he lends himself to it. Perhaps tired of movies where he was just a cute boy and a heartthrob, Cruise embarked on one of the films that established him as a serious actor to the point of earning him his first Oscar nomination. Beside him is a good supporting cast, from which I highlight especially Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava, in the roles of Ron's parents. But it's, in fact, Cruise who leverages the film and, through a dense and pained interpretation, impresses the audience.
Still a word to highlight, positively, the careful and detailed direction of Oliver Stone. The director left nothing to chance and was even bold in choosing Cruise as the protagonist when he could have chosen any other flashy actor. The post production and editing work, as well as all the visual and sound effects in combat and action scenes, all contributed to making this movie truly great. Personally, I'm even impressed that this movie lost the Oscar for Best Picture this year.
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Most war films are focused upon the horror of war as it is experienced in the battlefield. The accidental killing of civilians, friendly fire, and the terror facing the enemy are all well-trodden territory and Oliver Stone's Born on the Fourth of July portrays them through the eye of Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise). However, what separates this film from other war pictures is that it quickly moves away from those horrors. As hinted in the film's nostalgic and sentimental 1950s America first act, this is not a film about the carnage of war as it relates to the carnage itself. Rather, it is a film about what that carnage does to a person's mind, their body, and their spirit. How one encounter with the enemy can damage them for the rest of their life and alienate them from the world that one embraced them so eagerly. Born on the Fourth of July is a film about the things that many wish to overlook as being facts of war and the fact of fighting on behalf of one's country. This is a film about the dirty details that are inconvenient regardless of the side you are on.
Ron Kovic, a real man who wrote the book upon which the film is based, is a paraplegic from the chest down. Unable to walk or have sex, he feels like he is not a man anymore. Worse, he killed one of his own men in Vietnam and was partially responsible for the death of babies while there. In the hospital, he is greatly mistreated with nurses fighting him, threatening him with amputation, and telling him his sacrifice was worthless. Doctors never see him, all because they are overloaded due to demand with no budget whatsoever. At home, he is alienated from his family as they struggle to adjust to his paralysis and as he struggles to acclimate back into life at home. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol and prostitutes while feeling ostracized from anti-war protesters who hate what he represents and pro-war folks who hate that he is a reminder of the human cost of war, Ron Kovic is a truly tragic figure throughout the entire film. His tale is a moving and powerful one that calls to attention the one element we always forget: our veterans.
As an anti-war person myself, it is easy to see why veterans in America have been forgotten. As Ron figures out, nobody wants him. Too often anti-war protests turn against those who fought instead of focusing on the true source of evil: the government that corrupted those boys and girls minds and convinced them that this was worth their life. On the other side, the pro-war folks ignore the veterans equally as much as they are a reminder of the fact that war kills, maims, and damages completely. Politically, this winds up being the democrats who do not support veterans out of fear of seeing too pro-war to their base and republicans who do not support veterans because, well, they should be able to pay their own way and not rely on handouts (in essence, passing the buck so they do not need to think about them). The only ones who get hurt by this are veterans. It is tragic to see this film come out in 1989 and, yet, we are still here in 2017 wondering why the VA is awful and why we let so many veterans become homeless and unemployed.
In portraying this character, Cruise approaches it with great sensitivity. Perhaps, his turn as Ron Kovic is the most nuanced performance he has given in his career. Deftly portraying him as an unquestioned patriot before the war to a man who slowly realizes he was fed lies all these years, Cruise's depiction is heart breaking and entirely moving. Alongside him, however, both Raymond J. Barry and Caroline Kava give terrific performances as his parents. Both lost and confused about how to handle their son after the war, the two try their best. Eli (Barry) acts like a father and builds Ron everything he needs. He tries to essentially rebuild his son, which he knows to be futile, but he tries anyways. Patricia (Kava) struggles more openly, especially when Ron's anger and PTSD gets into full swing and he lashes out at everybody around him. For her, her son died in Vietnam and the man that came back in his place is a cruel and mean impostor. It is a nearly impossible mental hurdle to overcome and Kava's raw performance embodies just how challenging it is to see somebody you love be so impacted by something you wish you could fix immediately for them.
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A true and pragmatic story of how our government took zealous young men and transformed them into cynical alcoholics by using them for their own greedy purposes. As far as we all should know, Vietnam was solely for profiting of oil. Stone's direction and script is feisty and captivating, by affectively making each scene dramatic and not corny. Although, I can still see no aberration from Stone's previous work, as it's all on contentious and widely distributed ideas and topics. Cruise is a revelation as Ron Kovic, a man whose life is more auspicious and pessimistic than any normal person. Stone seems to be the only one who can make war and political dramas that don't become clichéd
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If you want to go see Tom Cruise complaining about how unfair life is to him then this is definitely the movie for you. I know it is supposed to be another powerful Oliver Stone Vietnam film and I have respect for Platoon. But really did this film need to be so friggin' long? This was one of Cruise's worst roles and that is saying something. If you want to see a good Cruise film, try Tropic Thunder. Otherwise ignore this bloated, over-long, poorly acted mess of a film that didn't deserve any Oscars that year much less best Director.
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Awards
Academy Awards, USA
• 2 Wins & 8 Nominations
Golden Globes, USA
• 4 Wins & 5 Nominations
Motion Picture Sound Editors, USA
• 3 Wins & 3 Nominations
