Movie Review - Born On The Fourth Of July

The Meaning of Home and Country

“I just felt like I’m home…like maybe we’re home”, is the last line Ron Kovic, or Ronny says in the movie, “The Fourth of July”.  Kovic is played by Tom Cruise, a veteran actor by the time. Maybe it’s one of his best movies. There’s some sex, and of course violence. The story moves between Ron’s last year of high school in 1967, his enlistment in the war, and the war 13,000 miles away in Vietnam, where he as platoon leader, leads the fight, only to erroneously kill  village women and children, and hauntingly as well, one of the young newly enlisted men in his platoon, Charlie Wilson.

Then the heroic fight he makes, when he returns to his homeland, country and hometown two years later, only to find that he is not so much respected, as maligned by many citizens, as the tide against the war is beginning to change many Americans’ feelings about the justice of the war against the Vietnamese. At one point, he even says that the Vietnamese are brothers and have been fighting for their independence for 100 years.

The most poignant parts of the movie are his meetings with his “sweet heart”, Donna, the first time she sees him as a paraplegic, after his return, and when he tells Charlie Wilson’s family (parents, and wife, who has a young child by Charlie who never met his father), that he was responsible for their son’s/husband’s death.

One of the most unnerving moments, is when his mother tells him to leave the house. He begins to blame her openly for his situation, the fact that he went to war and disabilities (physical as well as mental). He escapes temporarily to Mexico, where he tries to drown his memories of war atrocities and his gunning down of Charlie Wilson.

Finally, he returns to face all his fears. The movie ends in 1979, when he has become an author, and has come to accept his lot in life, moved passed his disability to become an author, and important spokesperson for the movement against an unjust war. Nixon will be elected next President of the United States of America.