Platoon Leader

Oct 1, 1988

1h 37m

★ 5.5

War is hell. This was worse...

Overview

West Point graduate lieutenant Jeff Knight meets cynicism when taking command of sergeant Michael McNamara's tour veterans platoon in a Vietnamese trench camp. Unlike his predecessor, who hid till the end of his tour, Jeff takes charge, experiences the manual doesn't allow coping with all realities and gets wounded. He returns, now fully respect by men and superiors. Besides the Vietcong, the platoon wrestles with the inscrutable villagers, which the G.I.'s officially protect, but also fear as some collaborate with them, other covertly with the Cong, either way subject to bloody reprisals.

Genres

Drama

War

Action

Production Companies

The Cannon Group

Breton Film Productions

Platoon Leader Trailers

Cast

Lt. Jeff Knight

Michael Dudikoff

Sgt. Michael McNamara

Robert F. Lyons

Raymond Bacera

Michael DeLorenzo

Joshua Parker

Jesse Dabson

Sgt. Robert Hayes

Rick Fitts

Jan Shultz

Tony Pierce

Duffy

Daniel Demorest

Sgt. Roach

Brian Libby

Pvt. Don Pike

Michael Rider

Major Flynn

William Smith

Kemp

Al Karaki

Larsen

Evan J. Klisser

Five Green Berets stationed in Vietnam in 1968 grudgingly undertake the mission of a lifetime -- to secretly transport an 8,000-pound elephant through 200 miles of rough jungle terrain. High jinks prevail when Capt. Sam Cahill promises the Montagnard villagers of Dak Nhe that he'll replace their prized elephant in time for an important ritual. But for Capt. T.C. Doyle, the mission becomes a jumbo-sized headache!

5.7

Braddock: Missing in Action III

Jan 22, 1988

When Colonel James Braddock is told that his Asian wife and 12-year-old son are still alive in Communist Vietnam, he mounts a one-man assault to free them. Armed with the latest high-tech firepower, Braddock fights his way into the heart of the country and ends up battling his way out with several dozen abused Amerasian children in tow! Struggling to keep them alive while outmaneuvering a sadistic Vietnamese officer, Braddock ignites the jungle in a blazing cross-country race for freedom.

6.7

Path to War

Oct 28, 2003

A powerful drama of soaring ambition and shattered dreams that takes a provocative insider's look at the way the USA goes to war—as seen from inside the LBJ White House leading up to and during the Vietnam War.

7.4

The 317th Platoon

Mar 31, 1965

In Laos, 1954, eight days before the french defeat in the Indochina war, the 317th platoon – four french soldiers and 41 laotian combatants – has been ordered to leave its outpost and to retreat for the plains of Diên Biên Phu, where the french army is getting stucked. Led by the inexperienced and idealistic sous-lieutenant Torrens, fresh out of the military academy, and by adjutant Willsdorf, a WWII veteran of the Werhmacht, the group must cross 150 kilometers of jungle. But dripping rainwater, hostile nature, and the Viêt-minh ambushes expose them to constant danger.

6.0

Chicago 10

Feb 29, 2008

Archival footage, animation and music are used to look back at the eight anti-war protesters who were put on trial following the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

6.8

Firebase

Jun 28, 2017

Set during the Vietnam war, Firebase follows American soldier Hines through an ever-deepening web of science fiction madness.

6.5

The Boys in Company C

Feb 2, 1978

Disheartened by futile combat, appalled by the corruption of their South Vietnamese ally, and constantly endangered by the incompetence of their own company commander, the young men find a possible way out of the war. They are told that if they purposely lose a soccer game against a South Vietnamese team, they can spend the rest of their tour playing exhibition games behind the lines.

5.2

The Crazy World of Julius Vrooder

Oct 17, 1974

After returning home from the war, Vietnam veteran Julius Vrooder resides in a veteran's hospital, where he has been vaguely diagnosed as "psychiatrically impaired." Taking the news with an air of initially lighthearted defiance, Vrooder escapes and sets up camp under a highway, where he builds a paranoia-driven booby-trapped bunker for himself. Falling in love with not-so-bright nurse Zanni, Vrooder soon plans to elope with her to a remote Canadian outpost.

6.1

The Odd Angry Shot

Mar 1, 1979

A group of Australian SAS regiment soldiers are deployed to Vietnam around 1967/8 and encounter the realities of war, from the numbing boredom of camp life and long range patrols, raids and ambushes where nothing happens, to the the terror of enduring mortar barrages from an unseen enemy. Men die and are crippled in combat by firefights and booby traps, soldiers kill and capture the enemy, gather intelligence and retake ground only to cede it again whilst battling against the bureaucracy and obstinacy of the conventional military hierarchy. In the end they return to civilization, forever changed by their experiences but glad to return to the life they once knew.

2.0

Autopsy

Oct 15, 1973

Mondo-style docudrama about a war correspondent who comes back home and has a spiritual crisis about his own mortality. Surreal fantasy sequences are mixed with graphic real autopsy footage.

10.0

Thud Pilots II

Jul 1, 2021

Based off the spellbinding book Thud Pilot, the much anticipated sequel to the 2018 award-winning documentary Thud Pilots continues the story and legacy of the most iconic fighter in the Vietnam War, the F-15 Thunderchief. Thud Pilots II reveals the rise of the Hunter Killer mission and the pilots who refused to be beat despite their hands being tied.

6.0

Easy Targets

Jun 19, 2021

Vietnam 1973. After a brutal Vietcong attack, American sniper Calvin Hart and his injured spotter Thomas Newton must fight their way through enemy territory with limited resources to reach their rescue team. While communicating via radio with their sergeant, the soldiers become the targets of bounty hunters, assassins and the VC's best sharpshooters. With Newton dying fast and Hart losing his sanity even faster, the pair faces immeasurable odds made worse by a haunting obligation waiting back at home.

7.7

The Holdovers

Oct 27, 2023

A curmudgeonly instructor at a New England prep school is forced to remain on campus during Christmas break to babysit the handful of students with nowhere to go. Eventually, he forms an unlikely bond with one of them — a damaged, brainy troublemaker — and with the school’s head cook, who has just lost a son in Vietnam.

6.2

Gardens of Stone

May 5, 1987

A sergeant; stationed in Arlington, Virginia in the late 1960s; must deal with his desires to save the lives of young soldiers being sent to Vietnam. Continuously denied the chance to teach the soldiers about his experiences, he settles for trying to help the son of an old army buddy.

0.0

Time in the Jungle

Apr 14, 1988

Defectors from Hitler's army join the French Foreign Legion and end up in Vietnam in the late '40s.

6.0

The '60s

Feb 7, 1999

The Herlihys are a working class family from Chicago whose three children take wildly divergent paths: Brian joins the Marines right out of High School and goes to Vietnam, Michael becomes involved in the civil rights movement and after campaigning for Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy becomes involved in radical politics, and Katie gets pregnant, moves to San Francisco and joins a hippie commune. Meanwhile, the Taylors are an African-American family living in the deep South. When Willie Taylor, a minister and civil rights organizer, is shot to death, his son Emmet moves to the city and eventually joins the Black Panthers, serving as a bodyguard for Fred Hampton.

0.0

The Forgotten War

Jan 1, 2020

The Korean War saw three years of heavy combat take place on the small Korean peninsula, ending in a stalemate that remains contested to this day. This documentary tells the story of the Forgotten War from the point of view of the veterans that were sent to fight it.

0.0

Fighting Fred Funston

Apr 1, 2017

On April 18th, 1906, San Francisco witnessed its most devastating natural disaster – an earthquake that initiated a city-wide fire. The commanding officer of the U.S. Army base at the Presidio, Fred Funston, gathered citizens to fight the fire, patrol the streets, and rebuild the city – all without authorization.

0.0

Pride of the Buffalo Soldier

Apr 1, 2017

African American soldiers throughout the 19th and 20th Centuries faced discrimination and segregation, yet many still chose to fight for their country.

6.5

Hell Is for Heroes

Jun 26, 1962

World War II drama where the action centers around a single maneuver by a squad of GIs in retaliation against the force of the German Siegfried line. Reese joins a group of weary GIs unexpectedly ordered back into the line when on their way to a rest area. While most of the men withdraw from their positions facing a German pillbox at the far side of a mine-field, half a dozen men are left to protect a wide front. By various ruses, they manage to convince the Germans that a large force is still holding the position. Then Reese leads two of the men in an unauthorized and unsuccessful attack on the pillbox, in which the other two are killed; and when the main platoon returns, he is threatened with court-martial. Rather that face the disgrace, and in an attempt to show he was right, he makes a one-man attack on the pillbox.