MovieChat Forums > Platoon (1987) Discussion > Dat one highly improbable scene

Dat one highly improbable scene

posted 9 years ago by EvilBaldDude
3 replies | jump to latest

This is the only bit of the film that lost me.

A guy gets shot 2-3 times in the upper body, and drops. He later gets up again and runs. Ok, seems unlikely, but combat experts say that's possible.

But he's then seen being chased by a dozen or so NVA, all hot on his heels, and shooting at him with their AKs. He then drops to his knees, and manages to die slowly and dramatically enough for a full orchestral crescendo, all while under heavy automatic fire, at short range, to his back.

[–] cockroachcharlie 8 years ago

I can't argue the probability of the scene. I will say that some determined men can survive some pretty impressive wounds. Look at Blackbeard.

That said, I think artistic license took play here as the shot is modeled after an actual photograph.

[–] Degree7 8 years ago

Dat ?

~ I'm a 21st century man and I don't wanna be here.

[–] stevekaczynski 8 years ago

Some of the fire was probably from the helicopter, and might have been aimed at the NVA, perhaps making their own fire at Elias less accurate. We are also supposed to see Elias as a sort of Christ figure which is why he makes those gestures as he is being killed.
In terms of improbability, I thought the rather free and easy interracial relations in Elias' bunker rather more unlikely than this, according to one vet who commented on the film in a newspaper article I read years ago. White and black soldiers in Vietnam, according to him, tended to prefer the company of other black or white soldiers, even when there was no overt racial tension (and sometimes there was).

"Chicken soup - with a *beep* straw."