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Plot Summary
Tom Cruise delivers a riveting and unforgettable portrayal of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic in Oliver Stone's Academy Award®-winning masterpiece. Based on a true story, the acclaimed film follows the young 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 for the disenchanted.
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Rotten Tomatoes Movie Reviews
TOMATOMETER
90%- Reviews Counted: 39
- Fresh: 35
- Rotten: 4
- Average Rating: 7.4/10
Top Critics' Reviews
Fresh: Born on the Fourth of July is...the most ambitious nondocumentary film yet made about the entire Vietnam experience.
Fresh: Stone has found in Cruise the ideal actor to anchor the movie with simplicity and strength.
Fresh: Tom Cruise, who takes Kovic from clean-cut eager teen to impassioned long-haired activist, is stunning.
Fresh: Nothing Cruise has done will prepare you for what he does in Born on the Fourth of July.
Customer Reviews
A Great and Powerful Movie
This is actually part 2 in what Oliver Stone calls his unofficial "Vietnam trilogy", in which he attempts to show America's war in Vietnam from three entirely different perspectives. "Platoon" was based on Stone's own experiences as an infantry soldier in the jungles of Vietnam and highlights the day-to-day activities of the common foot soldier. He said he made Platoon for the veterans of that war and thus made no grand and sweeping statements concerning the politics of it. It's a powerful and important film and deserved the Oscar for Best Picture, which it won. "Born on the Fourth of July" is the true story of Ron Kovic and his journey from being the all-American kid who believes in the war, volunteers for it, becomes paralyzed in a firefight and eventually becomes a powerful and outspoken activist against the war. Many people (who were familiar with Kovic's story) criticized Stone for using Tom Cruise in the lead role, saying that he would be unable to pull off the transformation that they knew was coming. It's not an easy film to sit through. Kovic's experience in the VA hospitals are particularly hard to watch and will probably resonate with Americans more today than when the film was released. Again, a powerful and important film. "Heaven and Earth", Stone's third movie about Vietnam, is the factual story of a Vietnamese woman. I'm running out space, so if you've read this far and are interested in knowing more about "Heaven and Earth" then I suggest going to rogerebert.com and reading his excellent review of it. Yet again, Stone offers up another powerful and important film about the American war in Vietnam.
Terrible political rant of a movie
The Movie is typical in it's embrace of Vietnam Vets as crazy, angry and the war as wrong, if you want an honest look at what this war did to it's vets read "Stolen Valor" and ignore the protagonist and the director of this film. The best scene in the film is at the pool table when the WWII Vet tells Cruise to stop complaining because he has seen people worse than his character (Kovic) and that they don't complain, I have seen far worse in our recent conflicts and they would say the same thing to Kovic. While I understand Kovic's anger, his target is misplaced and like a lot of Vietnam Vets that the Media and the left embraced he looked to this country to vent that anger on. The movie is yet another example of the hard left turn that Hollywood took with it's films on war and the people who fight them, in Hollywood they cannot see that no matter the reason for a conflict the people who fight it and the intangibles they bring with them like honor, sacrifice and loyalty are still noble things to look at with admiration.
One of the greatest movies
This is one of the greatest movies...moving, great characters, beautiful cinematography, haunting score...and now it has an all new powerful impact due to the war in Iraq. Stone at his best.
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