The better an actor understands his role, the better he can embody it. Director Oliver Stone apparently also took this credo to heart. For his war film masterpiece Platoon, he sent cast members like Charlie Sheen and Willem Dafoe to a brutal training camp, the Sheen later as “the longest two weeks of my life” described. The film is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
On Amazon Prime: A war film with Charlie Sheen, who didn’t shower for weeks
Platoon is about young volunteer Chris Taylor (Sheen), who is sent to Vietnam in 1967 as a US soldier. The morale of his platoon of comrades is split between the humanistically inclined Elias (Dafoe) and the unscrupulous Barnes (Tom Berenger), whose conflict soon explodes explosively.
So that the stars could understand the experience of war, Vietnam veteran Stone sent them to a kind of training camp for several weeks in the Philippines. There they apparently lived according to military drill.
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Speaking to CBC, Sheen described the experience this way: “It was the longest two weeks of my life. […] We lived underground and dug our own fox dens. We wore the same clothes and weren’t allowed to shower. Phone calls to our agents or letters to friends were not allowed.”
Nevertheless, according to Sheen, the two weeks were a “valuable“Time. In any case, they didn’t do any harm from a critical point of view: As Metacritic shows, Platoon is considered by many to be a masterpiece of its genre, not least because of its realistic depiction of what happened during the war.
Podcast: The 5 most exciting streaming films in January on Netflix, Amazon and Co.
You don’t know what to stream on Netflix or Amazon tonight? In the monthly overview we present you the most promising new films in January.
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Among the 5 selected streaming films you will find a star-studded sci-fi drama as well as a survival thriller that was made on Netflix based on true events.
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