Ron Kovic is a patriotic young lad living with his very religious parents. Inspired by TV adds calling young men to enlist to fight in the Vietnam War, Ron follows suit. In Vietnam, Ron sees a silhouette charging from a sand dune and shoots, inadvertently killing a fellow American soldier, Wilson. In another battle, Ron is shot through the chest and left paralyzed from the vaist down. Now in a wheelchair, he returns home to his parents, still patriotic, but slowly starts doubting his country's leadership in the war. He meets his ex-sweetheart again, Donna, now an anti-war activist, and joins her advocacy. Ron suffers a nervous breakdown and goes to Villa Dulce, where he meets another war veteran in a wheelchair, Charlie. They argue and fight. Ron visits Wilson's parents and apologizes. He becomes a bitter opponent to the war and Richard Nixon.
"Born on the 4th of July" is a movie comprised out of three features: anxiety, suffering and disillusionment. Director Oliver Stone took the real life story of Vietnam war veteran Ron Kovic and, thankfully, restrained his political fundamentalism, allowing for the viewers to draw their own conclusions and messages from the bitter story. The movie works the best in the first half: it starts off with a sequence of little children playing war with toy guns, implying that there might be some deeper human obsession with conflict. Tom Cruise delivers one of his most realistic and finest performances as the hero, who slowly undergoes a transition from a right-wing to a left-wing spectrum, after being left paralyzed from a shot in the war. Cruise works both during the small moments before the war, such as when Ron takes the braces from his teeth before he goes to talk to the girl he has a crush on in a store, up to the gritty, dark time after the war. There is a devastating moment when a doctor has this exchange with Ron, who recovered from his injury: "You will never be able to walk again". Ron just asks: "Will I be able to have children?", and the doctor gives him a direct anwser: "No. But we have good therapists". The movie works showing this sad, emotional struggle, but in the last third, it starts to become too melodramatic, preachy and manipulative, especially in the last 20 minutes when it just basically becomes a polygon for Ron shouting and vituperative language at the Republican National Convention, with little subtlety or sophistication. The whole subplot involving fellow war veteran Charlie is pointless. After an energetic first half, it seems Ron does not know what to do with his life anymore, and the movie becomes equally unsure, going around in circles without a clear goal of what direction it should take in the final act. There are several episodes (one of them involving Ron's sex with a prostitute, despite his disability), yet seem isolated and unconnected. However, "4th of July" manages to assemble an ambitious story that gives spotlight to neglected people.
Grade:++
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