Why Platoon? I know it won an Oscar in 1987 for Best Picture and Best Director, and most of the cast was nominated for Best Supporting Actor, and it probably is to date, the most honest and best movie portrayal of Vietnam ever. Why is it a bad movie then? Because it made Vietnam look like fun.

Bear with me. Yes the threat of dying is all around you, but at the same time, your job is essentially to throw on some cool ass camoflage, lock and load, and go hiking. Granted the weather may be a little hot, but, you have a cantene full of water, and all the cigarettes you could possibly want. The pros are still outweighing the cons as far as i'm concerned here. Let's take a look at the good and the bad of being in Vietnam according to Platoon.

The Bad
• Getting killed.
• Gardner talking about his girlfriend Lucy Jean.
• Having to tote Gardner's 300 pound dead body miles through the jungle.
• Watching Sandy and Sal get blown to pieces and then seeing Sandy walk out of said trap armless.
• The humidity.
• Finding Manny strung up to a tree with his throat slit.
• Having your leg blown off by a poorly tossed grenade from Red.
• Ants on your neck.
• Cleaning latrines with King because he stole beers.
• Nothing but Pork K-Rations, and having to listen to Junior complain about having nothing but Pork K-Rations.
• Getting so stoned that you don't mind dancing with a bunch of shirtless men.
• Listening to Taylor talk about his grandmother.
• Being called a cheese dick...because its hurtful.
• Having Barnes give you beauty mark under the eye with that cool little knife of his.
• Bunny talking about the Indy 500.
• Bunny discussing the finer points of Red Neck Noise.

The Good
• Playing cards with Red and Barnes.
• Gardner getting killed right after he's done talking about Lucy Jean.
• Drinking Kentucky windage with LT.
• Choosing between two barricks....one that offers all manners of alcohol, and the Head.....a den of marijuana.
• Praying with Rodriguez to his shrine, which according to the Lietenant, is 'quite a shrine'.
• Having Bunny offer you fragments of aluminum torn from beer cans with his mouth.
• Doing the village, doing the whole fucking village.
• Watching that fucking head come apart.
• Barnes ending a speech with 'I shit you not'.
• Feeling good, which is good enough.
• Smoking pot through an AR-15 and not getting your head blown off.
• Making the one-legger dance.
• Watching Red beg for R&R and hearing Barnes tell Red 'We all gotta die some day'.
• Enjoying Johnny Depp's performance and knowing he's going to be as big as C. Thomas Howell some day.
• Barnes dressing down the 'pot heads'.

The Ugly
• Adrien Brody

Hmmmm....after going over the list it appears the bad does outweigh the good. Don't I feel like the fucking asshole. Disregard everything I said earlier, going to Vietnam would probably not be fun. Platoon however, as tragic as the subject matter is that it covers, is probably one of the funniest movies ever made. Loaded with some of the most memorable lines (much like many of the bad movies on Bad Movie Knights), Platoon is a staple on any Bad Movie Night. Granted it is not often viewed (because we've all seen it so many times we can recite it verbatim), but Platoon's spirit is ever present when the Knights gather round the flat screen.

Hamlin Grade: 6

Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
pat