Born on the Fourth of July hit me like a goddamn freight train.

I'm writing this having finished the film only moments before, so I apologize in advance if this comes out unstructured and messy.

My mother's father—my grandpa—is a Vietnam War veteran. For as long as I've known the man, I've always had a very specific image of him in my head. He's tall, like me, and thin—very thin, stemming from health problems caused by his time in Vietnam. In my head, I picture him with a beard, though through my life he's alternated between being clean-shaved, mustachioed, and bearded. It just seems to fit him the best. He's also had shoulder-length hair for a long time now—probably since…

In Chuck Klosterman's new book (But What If We're Wrong), he talks about how films inevitably reveal more about when they were made as opposed to the time they were made about. So true with this one. In 1989, Vietnam was still The Last War; and as the Cold War, too, was coming to and end, audiences at the time could be forgiven for believing that Vietnam might just be the LAST war. Because lessons were learned. And there is no better illustration of that belief than the final minutes of this film - a celebration of the anti-war movement's taking part in the 1976 Democratic convention. 17 years and a couple of wars later it seems a confoundingly anti-climactic…

Apocalypse Now, Platoon and Full Metal Jacket are some of the prime examples of great movies about the Vietnam. Among this, there are countless docs and feature films that depicts the lives of those civilians being affected by the war and the many crimes committed during that particular war - and yet, something about this movie feels so unique and striking. Maybe its the fact that this is an autobiography, whilst many of the other films are mostly about fictional characters.

Tom Cruise as Ron Kovic -on first Oscar nominated, Golden Globe winning performance- steals the show and proves what a fantastic actor he truly was before he attempted to kill himself on screen (and we pleasingly loving him for…

The unsuccessful foreign policy mistake of America was attempting to bring doctrine to the Vietnamese, except we killed a lot of them by mistake or killed a lot of them through disregard of cultural otherness. Ron Kovic was barely in his teens when he killed women and children in Vietnam. In a shroud of guilt, he carelessly went gung ho with gunfire leaving himself bare open to get shot. He was paralyzed from the chest down for life. He was a good-looking kid, but he never had love with a woman nor had he ever had sex with a woman. Tom Cruise as Kovic goes from handsome and fit Marine to drooling lip paraplegic. This is perhaps the best performance…

A young man seduced by the myth of American virtue and might, only to be abandoned by the institutions he dedicated his life to. The story of Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic is a tragic one, populated by all the injustices commonly associated with the aftermath of the Vietnam War. But it's the stuff at home that hurts the most. Kovic was compelled to join the marines because of a manufactured masculine ideal, sold to the young men of America as it's own form of propaganda. Cruise's terrific performance perfectly captures Kovic's own transformation; from macho prototype of 1960's American masculinity to a liberal leaning, handicapped protester. Though the end result is virtuous, Kovic's journey there is anything but, cementing Born…

I actually like this one even more than Oliver Stone's more popular Platoon. It's a deeply sincere, unflinching depiction of someone seduced by an American myth and thrown aside as soon as he's of no further use. You can see that Ron Kovic truly believed in his country but all his immense sacrifice brought him was guilt, self-loathing and a sense that his life will always be unfulfilled. This film does a fantastic job of charting his loss of innocence; from his bright-eyed youth to his harrowing experience in Vietnam to his disillusionment to how he channels his new beliefs to make a difference.

Although it has pacing issues and concludes rather anticlimactically, it remains compelling because of Stone's respect…

“People say that if you don't love America, then get the hell out. Well, I love America.”

When you came out against the war, and you know, other veterans and so forth, your patriotism was challenged; your knowledge of history was challenged. 

And the argument that came down from people who had a much more extensive education than you — Robert McNamara, who after all was supposed to have been some kind of whiz-kid from Ford [Motor Co.], and genius and everything, was our secretary of defense. And it was all about the necessity of this war: “If we don’t stop ’em there, we’ll have to stop these communists in San Diego. There’s an international communist conspiracy, it’s going to take…