nickenchuggets Review of Born on the Fourth of July

Born on the Fourth of July (1989)

Ask what you can do for your country

[9/10 · 4 July 2022]

If there's one movie that epitomizes the sheer feelings of frustration Vietnam veterans had to live with after coming back home, Born on the Fourth of July has to be it. In this adaptation of Ron Kovic's autobiography, Ron (played by Tom Cruise) is aspiring to become a devoted defender of America. After witnessing the horrors of what was going on in Southeast Asia, he is critically injured and forced to return to a country full of people who don't appreciate him. The disgusting lack of respect towards him and his brothers in arms makes him always feel sorry for himself, but soon, he starts to see things from the opposite perspective. The movie begins with a young Ron attending a parade on Independence Day, which is also his birthday. After going in his house, he watches President Kennedy speak on the tv and tells his parents how he wants to help uphold the values of the American way of life. He believes the most honorable way of doing this is joining the military, but for Ron, this isn't good enough. He insists on being a marine; the cream of America's military and the men who were instrumental in achieving victory over Japan during World War 2. Ron's dad knows this too well, being a veteran himself. Ron eventually enlists, but by the time he gets to Vietnam, he gets a rude awakening and finds out this conflict has none of the heroic atmosphere of his father's war. While in vietnam, Ron experiences a brutal, life changing event that sees him, along with a squad of other soldiers, accidentally gun down a large amount of vietnamese civilians. In the following chaos, Ron kills a fellow marine named Wilson by mistake. In another engagement, Ron and his platoon are ambushed by North Vietnamese forces, which results in him getting shot multiple times with AK-47 rounds, one of which shreds part of his ankle. Miraculously, he survives and is taken to a hospital back in the States, but the conditions are appalling. Ron is left to lay in his own waste for hours on end, the staff are constantly high on drugs because they're demoralized about the war, and Ron is told he'll never walk again. Ron explodes at the hospital workers, convinced they don't care about how he was paralyzed in vietnam. Sadly, he's right. Ron is released from the hospital in a wheelchair only to find an ungrateful populace calling him a baby killer and other insulting things. The fact that he was in vietnam even starts affecting his own family, who is supposed to be supportive of him. He gets confrontational with almost everybody and is still wholly convinced that what the US military is doing in vietnam is justified. Soon though, he begins to wonder if he was actually tricked by his government into going there. Ron becomes more and more involved with the anti-war movement and attends protests where people shout obscenities about how vietnam is someone else's problem. He even travels to Mexico and meets some people who avoided being drafted by hiding there. Again, Ron gets into more fights because people will always see him as disabled (or a war criminal). He pays a visit to Wilson's parents and gives them the bad news about their son. They already know Wilson is dead by now, but Ron admits he was the one who killed him. Finally, Ron and some other vietnam veterans attend a convention organized by President Nixon in the early 70s in order to tell the whole country why vietnam was ultimately a very big mistake. Having never seen this film, I was really impressed by it. Most should be aware that vietnam veterans weren't treated like the veterans of other wars upon returning to america, as many in the country saw it as unjustified and senseless slaughter. I'd have to agree with this viewpoint, but it isn't Ron's fault or the fault of thousands of other americans that they were forced to fight for something they were against. I found Ron to be a pretty relatable and also moving character. Cruise always seems to give 110% in whatever movie he stars in, and this isn't any different. He really does seem to get genuinely mad when citizens come up to him and say things like americans in vietnam died for nothing. There's not many mainstream movies out there that show how big of an issue PTSD is for former soldiers, but this is one of them, and Tom's performance does a lot to sell that. Because it's America's birthday today, I felt it was my job to see this movie in order to understand how even though there's nothing fun or glamorous about war, America is worth defending.