I think he just felt like he needed to do to accomplish the mission, or whatever other cliche there was.
Remember when the two guys are blown up in the bunker by a booby trap. He's sitting there looking sad and reflecting and Sheen catches him doing so. He offers the LT to play a game of cards with them. And I would have been pissed if the commanding officer gave wrong coordinates getting 2 men killed and 2 wounded.
This is a stupid question. He killed a defenseless woman, and put a gun to the head of a child.
I don't give a crap if he's a soldier with a mission. Anyone who does that is evil and has zero sympathy from me.
[deleted]
Barnes fragged Elias, so f##k him.
I can understand killing that village woman as a heat of the moment thing, but killing Elias was messed up. I think he did care about most the troops in the platoon as stated when he was reflecting after the guys are blown up by the NVA booby trap. He was fearless and did what it took to complete the mission, he was a great leader in that sense
Barnes committed flagrant war crimes, but it was obvious at that point he was beginning to snap and was going insane. By the end he wanted the others to kill him to put him out of his misery.
shareI think Barnes was clearly meant to be a bad person or at least a corrupted one. He's supposed to be what good men might become if they become hellbent on winning the war at any cost. He might be a more effective killer, but he sacrifices his humanity in the process.
sharewas he the one who engineered things so that Willem Defoe's character was left behind?
I remember watching this movie with my best friend on the last day of high school one year and both of us just loved it so much.
Yes, that was Barnes. Oliver Stone films often use this same setup of a main character (Charlie Sheen, in this case) who represents the everyman or the audience, and then two father figures battling over his soul: Elias/Willem Dafoe as the "angel" who dies a Christ-like death and then Barnes, as the "devil".
shareBarnes probably was a good person before Nam, but I admit Platoon's tagline is certainly appropriate in his case: "The First Casualty of War is Innocence".
shareWell first he murdered the old lady, then he put a gun to a kid's head and was going to do the same. Then he (indirectly) kills Elias. What do you think, genius?
shareThere are no "good people" in war. "Good people" in war are killed and weeded out early on (very synonymous with natural selection). War is basically kill or be killed. Barnes chose the side of his men and his mission. He became an evil person but it had to be done to win the war which was immoral by nature.
share