Platoon
- R
- Year:
- 1986
- 120 min
- 1,465 Views
FADE IN:
A QUOTATION AGAINST A BLACK SCREEN:
'REJOICE, O YOUNG MAN, IN THY YOUTH ...'
The sound now of a C-130 air cargo plane roaring over us and we
cut sharply to:
EXT.AIRSTRIP - BASE CAMP - VIETNAM - DAY
As the C-130 coasts to a stop, the hatch rotating down on a hot,
dusty lifeless airstrip somewhere in Vietnam. Nothing seems to
live or move in the midday sun.
TITLES RUN:
A DOZEN NEW RECRUITS step off the plane, unloading their duffel
bags, looking around like only the new can look around, their
hair regulation-clipped, crisp, new green fatigues fitting them
like cardboard.
CHRIS TAYLOR is just another one of them - as he turns into a
tight closeup, to look at a motorized cart pulling up alongside
... He's about 21. Newmeat. His face, unburned yet by the sun,
is tense, bewildered, innocent, eyes searching for the truth.
They fall now on a heap of BODY BAGS in the back of the cart.
Two soldiers begin loading them onto the plane. Flies - hundreds
of flies - buzz around them, the only cue to their contents.
GARDNER:
(next to Chris, Southern accent)
That what I think it is?
SOLDIER 1
(a look)
I guess so ...
An uncomfortable look between them.
SERGENT:
Okay, let's go ...
As they move out, Chris' eyes moving with the body bags being
loaded onto the plane. Moving over now to a motley HALF DOZEN
VETERANS bypassing them on their way to the plane. They look
happy. Very happy, chatting it up.
They pass the newboys - and they shake their heads, their eyes
full of an almost mocking pity.
VETERANS:
Well I'll be dipped in sh*t - new meat! Sorry bout
that boys - 'sin loi' buddy ... you gonna love the
Nam, man, for-f***ing-ever.
Chris looking at them. They pass, except for the last man who
walks slower than the rest, a slight limp. His eyes fall on
Chris.
They're frightening eyes, starved, hollow, sunken deep in his
face, black and dangerous. The clammy pallor of malaria clings
to him as he looks at Chris through decayed black teeth. Then
the sun flares out on him and he's past. And Chris looks back.
Disturbed. It's as if the man was not real. For a moment there.
As if he were a ghost.
Chris walking, duffel bag on the shoulder, looks up at the
lollipop sun burning a hole through the sky. A rushing SOUND
now. Of frightening intensity, an effect combining the blast of
an airplane with the roar of a lion as we hardcut to:
EXT. JUNGLE - SOMEWHERE IN VIETNAM - DAY
The sun matches the intensity of the previous shot as we move
down into thick green jungle. We hear the sound of MEN coming, a
lot of men. The thwack of a machete. Brush being bulled. We
wait. They are getting close.
SUBTITLE reads:
December 1967 - Bravo Company, 25th InfantryDivision - Somewhere near the Cambodian Border.
A sweating white face comes into view. CHRIS - cutting point.
Machete in one hand, whacking out a path for the platoon, M-16 in
the other, he looks like he's on the verge of heat exhaustion.
Breathing too hard, pacing himself all wrong, bumping into
things, tripping, not quite falling, he looks pathetic here in
the naturalness of the jungle. An urban transplant, slightly
neurotic and getting more so.
His rucksack is coming apart as well, about 70 badly packed
pounds banging noisily.
Behind him BARNES now comes, the Platoon Sergeant. Then the RTO,
his radio man, humming lightly. Others are behind, the column
snaking back deep into the brush.
We cut around some FACES of the Platoon - all to be seen later.
Young faces, hard and dirty after weeks in the field, exhausted
yet alert, fatigues filthy, slept-in, torn, personalized, hair
way past regulation length, medals, bandanas. A jungle army.
Boys.
Chris glancing down at his raw bleeding blisters. Transfers the
machete to his other, slightly less blistered, hand. The kid
cuts on - struggling but trying, on his last reserves of
strength, smashing almost straight forward through brush, not
even bothering to look ahead. He smells something, looks around,
slows his pace, eyes working ... around to the base of a tree.
He moves past it.
And as he does so, the camera from his POV comes around on a dead
decomposing 10-day-old GOOK - eyes starting from its sockets,
worms and flies feasting.
Chris draws his breath in, terrified. Barnes suddenly appears
alongside, his hard humourless eyes looking annoyed from the gook
to Chris.
BARNES:
What are you waiting for? He ain't gonna bite you.
Move out.
Chris looks at him with pent-up hatred and crashes on.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING
At the COMPANY PC, CAPTAIN HARRIS on the radio.
HARRIS:
Bravo Two, Six. What's the delay up there, move it
out on point. We've got a link up at Phase Line
Whiskey at One Eight Zero Zero, over.
EXT. PLATOON PC - DAY - MOVING -- MORNING
At the PLATOON PC, LIEUTENANT WOLFE sweats heavily as he speaks
in his radio. He is also new to the field, a dark little feisty
guy, about 24, very hairy, especially in the eyebrows, an intense
get-ahead look.
LIEUTENANT WOLFE
Two Bravo, Two move it out. Six says we're jamming
'em up back there. Over.
Barnes, upfront, turns to SAL, his radio man, under his breath.
BARNES:
Tell that dipshit to get f***ed. Get that other
freshmeat up here. Gardner.
As Barnes picks up his pace, irritated now at this reprimand from
the CO - coming up on Chris, who is soaked now from head to foot
in sweat, dizzy, feeling sick, about to vomit.
BARNES (CONT'D)
What the hell's the matter with you Taylor! You a
sorry ass motherf***er. Fall back.
He grabs Chris's machete out of his hand and bulls his way into
the foliage, tearing it apart, setting a new pace.
Chris being bypassed by the column, their eyes on him. He is
swatting at the red ants that are all over his neck.
GARDNER, another new recruit, fat, hustling up to replace him.
A big and black medic - DOC - comes over, gentle eyes and manner;
with him is Sergeant ELIAS, concerned.
DOC:
You okay?
CHRIS:
Ants. I got ants on my neck ...
(shaking them out)
DOC:
(helping him)
Yeah, black ants are killers, you look sick man. You
need a little salt.
(reaching into his satchel)
Sergeant Elias, a handsome, graceful dark-haired Indian kid of
23, the squad sergeant, is taking items out of Chris' pack - air
mattress, extra unnecessary clothing, extra canteens, grenades,
gas mask, books.
ELIAS:
(shaking his head, amused)
You're humping way too much, troop, don't need half
this sh*t. I'll haul it for you but next time you
check it out with me okay?
Chris nodding, grateful, panting.
The men passing, watching. Chris sorry about this, trying to
keep up face.
BUNNY, a young 18 year-old with an angel's face, is pissing in
the dead gook's face.
KING passes, glances at him.
KING:
You're a sick mother Bunny.
Chris standing there one moment, fighting for his breath,
suddenly passes out, going over with his 70 pound rucksack,
hitting the ground with a loud bang.
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"Platoon" Scripts.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 5 Nov. 2024. <https://www.scripts.com/script/platoon_236>.
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