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"Born on the Fourth of July"

Review by The Film Fan Man

There has never been a better time to revisit Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning film Born on the Fourth of July, in which Tom Cruise stars as Ron Kovic, a bright-eyed young man who enlisted in the Marines to go to Vietnam to serve his country but emerged, years later, as a strong critic of American intervention overseas. You can’t overlook the fact that some of the soldiers currently in country in Iraq will undoubtedly come home with their psyches similarly shattered.

We see the residuals of war early on, when young Ronnie watches veterans marching in a Fourth of July parade in his hometown of Massapequa, Long Island. Note how the wheelchair-bound vet winces when firecrackers pop; this scene will be repeated when the paralyzed Kovic serves as Grand Marshal of a similar parade upon his return from the war. (Incidentally, the vet in the first parade is the real Ron Kovic, on whose autobiography the film is based.)

Insightful and unapologetic, Born on the Fourth of July sears into your soul just as Stone’s previous films Platoon and Salvador did a few years earlier. Like Platoon, it accurately portrays the horror and confusion of war. It shows veterans hospitals in a way you’ll never see in any public service announcement for the VA. And, in Kovic’s scene with fellow former soldier Timmy Burns (Frank Whaley), it drives home the point that the only ones you can ever talk to about life during wartime are those who were also on the front lines.

Cruise earned his Best Actor nomination on the strength of a performance that delivers on both the full-throttle material -- note particularly his "Love it or leave it" argument with brother Tommy after he returns from Vietnam -- as well as with the more nuanced stuff. Watch his expression, for instance, as Ron's high school sweetheart Donna walks up the steps the night before the Syracuse rally; everything he will never be able to physically do ever again shows in the way he watches her go.

Like many, I saw the film when it first came out, yet this was the first chance I had to see it again. It hasn’t lost any of its power in the intervening 15 years; if anything, given the current state of national and world affairs, its message is more important now than before. Phil Ochs once sang "It’s always the old to lead us to the war/Always the young to fall." Michael Moore mines much of the same sentiment in Fahrenheit 9/11. Kovic’s story, however, shows us both the before and after of a gung-ho hawk who turned into an even more determined anti-war activist... and includes the why as well. In the film as in real life, protesters who decry our veterans are missing the point; direct your anger at management, not labor.

Of course, one can’t ignore the parallels between the lives of Ron Kovic and John Kerry. Born on the Fourth of July ends with Kovic preparing to address the Democratic National Convention in New York City in 1976. Later this month, Kerry will formally accept his party’s nomination for President at the Democratic National Convention in Boston. Both volunteered for military service and became disillusioned with the war in Vietnam. Both channeled their personal stories into instruments for social change.

Born on the Fourth of July shows what a difference can be made by one man standing up for what he believes in. It will be up to the voters to decide how much of a difference John Kerry can make with a similar resolve.

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BuzzFlash wanted to offer this DVD to our readers, but the studio, Universal Pictures, is no longer producing the DVDs and they are difficult to get in quantity. We do recommend you rent or buy it.