Born on the Fourth of July (Special Edition) | 
 enlarge | Actors: Seth Allen (ii), Raymond J. Barry, Anne Bobby, Tom Cruise, Amanda Davis
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $9.99
Buy New: $2.99
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Avg. Customer Rating:  84 reviews
Sales Rank: 16835
Format: Ac-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dubbed, Dvd-video, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Original Language), English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Dubbed)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 145
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 7.1 x 5.4 x 0.6
MPN: MCAD26135D
ISBN: 1417026111
UPC: 025192613524
EAN: 9781417026111
ASIN: B0002V7ON8
Theatrical Release Date: December 20, 1989
Release Date: October 19, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New, Factory Sealed, Thousands of Titles Listed, Fast Processing
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Product Description
The biography of ron kovic. Paralyzed in the vietnam war he becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for. Studio: Uni Dist Corp. (mca) Release Date: 10/24/2006 Starring: Tom Cruise Jerry Levine Run time: 145 minutes Rating: R Director: Oliver Stone
Amazon.com essential video
The second film in Oliver Stone's Vietnam trilogy moves from the brutality of war in Platoon to its equally traumatic aftermath. Based on the memoir of combat veteran Ron Kovic, the film stars Tom Cruise as Kovic, whose gunshot wound in Vietnam left him paralyzed from the chest down. He is deeply embittered by neglect in a veteran's hospital and by the shattering of his patriotic idealism because of the horror and futility of the Vietnam conflict. While painfully and awkwardly adjusting to his disability and a changing definition of masculinity, Kovic joins the burgeoning movement of antiwar protest, culminating in a climactic appearance at the 1976 Democratic national convention. A powerfully intimate portrait that unfolds on an epic scale, Born on the Fourth of July is arguably Stone's best film (if you can forgive its often strident tone), and Cruise's Oscar-nominated role is uncompromising in its depiction of one man's personal anguish and political awakening. --Jeff Shannon
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| Customer Reviews: Read 79 more reviews...
 "Ronnie, you're doing the right thing. Communism has got to be stopped." ( * * 1/2) August 23, 2008
Everybody and their brother thinks this is a war film classic. I don't. I grew up in Massapequa, knew Ron Kovic (slightly), hung out at Arthur's Bar, got my hair cut at Sparky The Barber's, I played in Sally's Woods as a kid, and watched God knows how many holiday parades down Broadway. Growing up, they occurred on every major holiday except The Feast of The Assumption.
Massapequa's the kind of place you love and hate at the same time. It's a fly in the amber. The schools are excellent. Businesses like All-American and Krisch's Ice Cream Parlor have been there since 1955 and remain surprisingly unchanged. The town's underlying values remain intact, mostly because the kids that grew up there in the Fifties inherited their parents' houses and have passed them on to their kids now. On the Fourth of July the smoke from "illegal" fireworks is so dense that spy satellites can't penetrate it (this is a documented fact). There's been a spate of new construction, if you can consider a spate to have lasted 25 years, but beyond that, it's still home as I remember it.
So the ersatz Massapequa (a town in Vermont that they dressed up) in this film was a little disconcerting to me: "Lemke Hardware wasn't even on the same street as Krisch's, and Krisch's is Krisch's, not Boyer's!"
Hollywood.
And this wasn't even the original film. The original BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY by Brian DePalma starred Al Pacino and was made, or partly made, in 1978. The Internet Movie Database tells me that the "financing fell through" but I can recall the Pequa Theater marquee showing "Love Story" during some filming. They were actually going to use Massapequa to represent Massapequa in that version.
Actually, the sets don't bother me half as much as Tom Cruise. Pacino would have made this movie a TRUE classic. Cruise is real good at playing the teenaged Ronnie Kovic, but he utterly blows the role once Ronnie Gets His Gun. Cruise spends most of the movie overacting shamelessly, like yelling "Penis, penis, penis!" in a badly-acted "drunk" scene, and turning the heart-rending bitter anger of Ron Kovic's searingly sad book into something like pablum for the ease of audience digestion. We needed grit and despair in this movie. We got Tom Cruise, and not the Tom Cruise of A FEW GOOD MEN or THE LAST SAMURAI, we got the Tom Cruise of Jumping On Oprah's Couch Tom Cruise.
War is hell. It should be presented as such. And so should it's hellish consequences. Like the Massapequa it presents the Ron Kovic of this film is not the real deal.
 Powerful story of the Vietnam era in microcosm August 5, 2008
I'm no fan of Oliver Stone (see my 1 star review for Platoon) or his politics, and even though this film's ultimate "message" is overtly political (Vietnam was a worthless cause, based on lies) and somewhat mendacious in pushing that left-wing agenda (it was the Republicans' fault), I still rate it highly based solely on its portrayal of Ron Kovic's personal story. This movie depicts with heartbreaking realism the experience of an All-American boy who comes home from the Vietnam War paralyzed from the waist down. Surely it can't be considered political to tell that story, can it? That would be the specious and self-interested argument of your typical neocon warmonger, who would like to keep the cameras away from Walter Reed, where the 19 and 20 year old victims of their phony war learn to cope with life without arms or legs or recognizably human faces. I think it's a good thing for the flag-waving public to understand the consequences of their jingoism and see what soldiers have to sacrifice. This movie makes that lesson quite clear. It can be raw and explicit, but so is getting your spinal cord snapped in two. Tom Cruise gives a fantastic performance here, the supporting cast is first rate, and the extraordinary attention to visual detail combine to create a moving and powerful film. My one complaint is that it doesn't really explain Kovic's conversion from super-patriot to anti-war activist, and represents him as a singularly inarticulate spokesman, at that. It seems to present his argument as amounting to nothing more than "I'm mad" and "The government lied!". Perhaps the real life Kovic had a more cogent position, but I didn't get that from the movie. In any case, it's an emotional and powerful look at one soldier's ordeal of tragedy and recovery.
 Stone's Oscar winner June 30, 2008
The controversial filmmaker Oliver Stone copped an Best Director Oscar for his true story about Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic's rebirth as a peace activist. Also Cruise scored an Oscar nod for his fine performance as Kovic and he's ably supported by a fine cast which includes a very young Kyra Sedgwick as his first love, Tom Berenger as a Marine recruiter, and Wilem Dafoe as a fellow parapalegic vet. The story concerns Kovic's change from a patriotic young man to a battle scarred parapalegic, disillusioned Vietnam vet to finally a committed peace activist. It's quite a journey and this may well be Cruise's best performance to date alongside his best supporting performance in "Magnolia". Forget about his off screen antics and his Scientology posturing and check this one out for his fine performance. I really think that Stone should also have received a Best Picture for this film too. By the way, the HD copy is a winner also.
Good movie December 25, 2007
I like this movie! Born on the Fourth of July was written in Santa Monica, California during the fall of 1974 in exactly one month, three weeks and two days. It tells the story of Kovic's life growing up in Massapequa, New York, joining the Marines going to Vietnam, getting shot, finding himself wheelchair bound, and eventually starting a new life as an anti-war activist.
Born on the Fourth of July July 6, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Helmed by "Platoon" director and Vietnam vet Stone, "Born" is a profoundly moving portrait of a macho athlete whose horrific battle experience causes him to reassess his politics and reorient his give-`em-hell attitude. Cruise, in an ambitious turn away from heartthrob roles, plays Kovic with precision and conviction, especially at his darkest moments, delivering the finest work of his career. Co-written by Stone and Kovic, "Born" reflects the pain and anger felt by an entire generation of returning US soldiers, and will leave a lasting impression.
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