Born on the Fourth of July

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Born on the Fourth of July

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Born on the Fourth of July

Tom Cruise, Raymond J. Barry, Caroline Kava, Willem Dafoe, Kyra Sedgwick

True story of Ron Kovic, a Marine wounded in Vietnam, covering his life from childhood in New York, through his 1964 enlistment and tour of duty in Vietnam, to his harrowing stay at a veterans hospita...( read more  read more... )l in the Bronx and eventual transformation into a well-known anti-war activist.

Id: 10906140

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Born on the Fourth of July Recent Reviews
  • SirPant
    September 24, 2009
    SirPant
    A more honest account this time from Stone which shows the brutal reality of the Vietnam war, it?s far superior to Platoon. Possibly the only time I think Cruise has really been great!
  • sononothing
    March 3, 2009
    sononothing
    Some movies act like a microcosm of history. They take one little part of an enormous picture and use it to show how the little piece of the big picture affected each other.

    With Born on the Fourth of July Oliver Stone shows us how gung-ho America was going into the Vietnam war ...( read more)and how that conflict affected millions of lives by looking at one life in that war: Ron Kovic (Tom Cruise). The film opens with the youngster Kovic watching a Fourth of July parade in the 1950's that reeks of apple pie and Eisenhower. Kids played soldier in the woods to mimic their dads and uncles stories from Europe in the decade before. Jump ahead to Kovic near graduation and deciding to join the Marines. He is still gung ho and ready to die for his country in a war in Vietnam that will be "over before we get there". He goes to Vietnam where two tragic events change his life forever in which one of them is taking a NVA bullet that renders him paralyzed from the chest down. He returns to a different America, polarized by the war and finds himself slowly seeing that the war wasn't as honorable as he thought it was.

    Tom Cruise finally got some respect from this film, proving that he could be more than the guy in his underwear dancing to Bob Seger or flying airplanes. By his return home he is a beaten man and it shows in his appearance. To me, this is Tom Cruise's first great performance. The remainder of the film from his return is mainly Stone showing Kovic's reaction to the turmoil that was the late '60's and the early '70's. The film shouts at us that this is how a million people reacted to it by looking at this one, lone man. It's a fascinating journey that Stone takes us on with ups and downs and the resentments and triumphs that go along with it. A terrific biopic.
  • hypathio7
    November 19, 2008
    hypathio7
    This movie left me shaken and choked up! It pays homage to The Best Years of Our Lives and perhaps some other films about vets returning home. But specifically Best Years, I think, with the shot of Ron Kovic after he has become paralyzed and finally returns to his parents' hous...( read more)e staring at his high school wrestling picture in his old room. Harold Russell in Best Years does the exact same thing becoming lost in the old picture from his high school athletics career when he felt he was a whole person. Both of these movies deal with men who have lost some part of themselves and have to discover how to gain strength and courage and acceptance to be a whole man again. By exploring Ron's youth, Born on the Fourth of July shows that the story is really about pressure and failure and confusion and how we deal with those things. This is an epic story with a tremendous supporting cast. It's about a boy who becomes a soldier, a soldier who becomes paralyzed, a paraplegic who becomes an outcast all the while searching for his humanity!! Sometimes it takes an outcast to speak the truth, someone who has been paralyzed to really stand for something, a soldier to fight for life, and of course it's the natural progression of things for a boy to triumphantly become a man!
  • drago25
    February 8, 2008
    drago25
    It certainly seems like this is a film that got lost in the shuffle - overshadowed by more popular films about Vietnam, such as Platoon (also done by Oliver Stone) or Full Metal Jacket or even The Deer Hunter. It's interesting because like The Deer Hunter (which is also excellent...( read more)), Born On The Fourth Of July focuses not on the events of the war itself but on the after-effects. I had wanted to see it for the longest time mainly because it's one of Tom Cruise's early roles, and I love Tom. It's also in my opinion his first truly great, or major role. Though he had good roles in The Color Of Money and Rain Man before this, it's Born where he really gets to show his chops as an actor for the first time. The film, based on the true biography of the main character, Ron Kovic (who was involved in the making of the film based on his book), is definitely an ambitious one, spanning much of the very involved life of Mr. Kovic and featuring a large ensemble cast. Stone, as he is able to do most of the time, handles the ambitious project very well. However, the film largely rests of the shoulders of Cruise, and he was obviously very up to the challenge, even this early in his career. This is one of the films that is just so vast it's almost hard to critique - but I know that I enjoyed it very much, and it featured some awesome surprises such as Willem Dafoe's role. Basically you have to see this if you enjoy Vietnam films or Oliver Stone or Tom Cruise or any combination thereof.
  • DrZeek
    February 6, 2008
    DrZeek
    Ron Kovic: People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America.

    Tom Cruise stars as Ron Kovic in the second of director Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy. Stone worked with the real Ron Kovic in order to try and capture what happened in his life,...( read more) from his early childhood, through his tour in Vietnam, and up to the eventual outcome surrounding his injury and what people thought about the war when he came back home.

    The movie starts off by showing us Kovic in his home town, desiring to become a marine and be a war hero like his father and the other WWII vets that he sees.

    We then shift to Vietnam, where Kovic sees and is a part of things that shock and hurt him. He is also shot, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down.

    This leads to the bulk of the film, which is better than what came before it. Kovic goes back home to a changed country. People take sides as to how effective this war really is and what to think about the government.

    Kovic also goes through mental anguish involving a number of things including what it means to be seen as a war hero, the loss of his legs, what America thinks of him, how he should think of America, and so on.

    He goes through a tough odyssey of sorts involving the things he is forced to deal with concerning his life and family, and what to do next.

    Cruise is very good in this role, probably among his best work as an actor. What would now easily be considered Oscar bait, playing a war hero paraplegic, is a testament to how good someone has to be to pull it off. His performance in this movie is probably overshadowed by Gary Sinese a few years later as Lt. Dan in Forest Gump, as that is probably more of a memorable film, but that shouldn't take away from how good Cruise is.

    There is also a good supporting cast that includes Raymond J. Barry as Kovic's father, Kyra Sedgwick as the girl he left behind, a number of people that were all in Platoon, including Willem Dafoe, who comes in late in the film to spice things up.

    The score of this movie, which I picked up pretty quickly as being from John Williams fits well with the themes of this movie. This goes with the style of the film visually as well. There are a lot of neat 'Stone' moments that one can recognize from the way they are setup.

    Stone, always being recognized for his editing style, makes that apparent here again for having a picture that flows well enough and moves into each scene appropriately.

    While verging on too depressing at times, mixed with enough profanity to hold anyone over for a week, this is a good story with a great performance from Cruise.

    Ron Kovic: Sometimes, Stevie, I think people, they know you're back from Vietnam, and their face - changes: the eyes, the voice, the way they look at you, you know.
    Steve Boyer: I know what you mean, Ronnie, but people here - they don't give a shit about the war! Yeah! To them it's just a million miles away. It's all bullshit, anyway. I mean, the government sold us a bill of goods and we bought it, and got the shit kicked out of us, and for what, huh?
    Ron Kovic: What do you mean, "we," Stevie? You were in college, man.
  • The13xxx
    December 21, 2009
    The13xxx
    Born on the fourth of july tells you the real life story of Ron Kovic a Vietnamese veteran that got injured and lost both of his leg during the war. The movie starts by showing his early life, his ambitious achievements, his proud family - then it goes to Vietnam; the horrid thin...( read more)gs they did there and the post life after the war. The movie is long, but it's bearable in some way. Depressing obviously, honest and brutal; Oliver Stone capture the pain and lost during this time brilliantly, or maybe i need to give the 4 star to the main actor; Tom Cruise?

    Tom Cruise is still one of my fav actor, this guy knows how to act and delivered some great memorable movies through out his filmography, and to see him in one of his earlier career is awesome! He was nominated for Oscar, and i am certain he should have won. Decent supporting actors too.

    8/10.
  • TheHitcher1987
    December 6, 2009
    TheHitcher1987
    Last Viewed: 05/12/2009
  • rayld02
    December 4, 2009
    rayld02


    It was more or less one of the most realistic anti-war films ever made. "Born on the Fourth of July" is a movie directed by probably the most political filmmaker literally, Oliver Stone, having done se...( read more)veral political films such as "JFK", "Nixon", "World Trade Center", "W.", etc. It stars Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic, a Vietnam War veteran who later established himself as a political and moral activist.

    The movie opens with children playing toy guns in the woods. One of them was the young Ron Kovic, who aspired of becoming an American soldier. The next scene takes us to a parade of war veterans who survived the previous battles. He saw there an old man with both arms dismembered looking at him while walking on the street. In the next cut, we see the young Ron Kovic with an unusual reaction while holding an American flag.

    Ron Kovic grew up in a political and religious family. He was a competitive piece of meat having joined several sports and competitions. As a child, he was a better baseball player. In his teen, he got involved in wrestling for his high school team.

    While watching news, Ron's mother broke in, "I had a dream Ronnie, the other night. And you were speaking to a large crowd, just like him (John F. Kennedy), and you were saying great things." And then there was JFK's famous lines, "Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country."

    When the American Marines went to their high school recruiting for new members, Ron got interested and enlisted himself. He knew how much sacrifice he was to go through when he joined the Marines. First, he would leave his family, his normal life. Then he would leave Donna (Kyra Sedgwick), a girl special to him and turned out to be his love interest in the beginning of the film. One of the best parts of the films is when Ron ran through the raging rain to go to the promenade in the dead of night and asked Donna for a dance with a background stringed quartet of Henry Mancini?s "Moon River" bringing up the mood of the early 1960's. they kissed and the feelings were passionate as the camera zoomed out revealing other couples romancing that night, but in the center of the screen were Ron and Donna.

    When Vietnam War broke, Ron was sent there to fight against the gooks who were threats for lives of other civilians. They fired a house of what was supposedly a homage for armed gooks, but later they found out that they have killed a family of civilians, with a baby crying and unharmed. Creepy music was playing as camera was playing in the middle of the situation. Ron wanted to save the child from harm as other American troops were attacking the area, but he was not able to. He was haunted by his conscience since then and he kept hearing sounds of a baby crying. In Oliver Stone's previous film "Platoon" (1986), there was also a scene where a little Vietnamese girl was going to be killed by an American soldier putting a gun on her head to blackmail her father to speak and tell information about the other gooks. Another was a scene in which another American soldier killed a civilian by pounding his face by the handle of a rifle forcefully several times. These scenes show the abusiveness of American soldiers through violence.



    Preoccupied by his latest failure, he shot an approaching man three times with his rifle that later revealed as one of his platoon mates named Wilson.
    The war has brought Ron a trauma from his previous experiences in Vietnam. What made his fight there more life changing is when he got shot on the foot and on his chest. That crippled him for the rest of his life and merely put him to verge of death.

    In the hospital for soldiers we follow Ron Kovic as he struggled for life survival. He was shocked having found the news that he could never walk again so he needed to be wheelchaired permanently. That did not throw a single thought of giving up for Ron. For he knew that what he was fighting for was the one that brought him that fate. Though unfortunate, he was proud and fulfilled, that although he lost some of his capabilities, he still was fighting for what is right.

    Ron, despite of his physical incapability got involved in mundane vices. He became alcoholic and sex-addict banging numerous prostitutes in Mexico where he stayed for years. There he met a crippled ex-soldier on a wheelchair like him named Charlie (Willem Dafoe). In "Platoon", he was the main character and we know as the "guy in the poster". The fighter whose silhouette we see with hands up high to the sky. In this film he was funny, arrogant and greasy looking old soldier who does nothing but to gamble and talk.



    Ron grew a bit ill tempered but morally opened to the flat facts of societal prejudice and political injustice. He became a member of the Vietnam Veterans Against War, a party dedicated to turn down the explosion of war against Vietnam for he knew that Americans were using much power that even civilians were being hurt most of the times.

    The movie was quite a surprise for me in the beginning. Seeing the poster I thought it was boring, but as the film progresses, I see the essence. It is an anti-war film made to help us realize; think before we do; stand for what you know is right and for others' good. You may have all the power, but utilize it for better reasons and not to harm smaller creatures. It tells us a life of a man that although tragic has made himself stand for the rights of others.

    The war scene was I don't think that much too artistic. First, it's hard to see movements in brown and orange with added intricacies of camera shots that pan rapidly. It is like a roller coaster ride, dizzying but exciting. The acting was great for Tom Cruise which I think is one of his greatest performances. It was full drama and you keep anticipating what is going to happen next since it has a very interesting plot and a number of outstanding performances. It is more realistic with no boring transitions from childhood to adolescence in the life of Ron Kovic, an American patriot, born on the fourth of July.
  • ythelastman89
    December 3, 2009
    ythelastman89
    This is without a doubt my favorite Oliver Stone movie. It has all of the passion and and emotional depth that the majority of his films don't contain. Tom Cruise played an amazing Ron Kovic, you were able to see the entire breakdown and redemption of his character. I loved the m...( read more)essage of the movie, it wasn't so much about action and physical damage of the war. It was about the complete destruction of hope for so many individuals.
  • odonoghuematthew
    November 16, 2009
    odonoghuematthew
    Best Directing 1989 - Best Sound editing 1989 - Best Adapted Screenplay 1989
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