Platoon (1986)

Charlie Sheen: Chris

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Quotes 

• [Refering to Vietnam] 

  Chris Taylor : Somebody once wrote, "Hell is the impossibility of reason." That's what this place feels like. Hell. I hate it already, and it's only been a week. Some goddamn week.

• [last lines] 

  Chris Taylor : [voiceover]  I think now, looking back, we did not fight the enemy; we fought ourselves. And the enemy was in us. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days as I'm sure Elias will be, fighting with Barnes for what Rhah called possession of my soul. There are times since, I've felt like the child born of those two fathers. But, be that as it may, those of us who did make it have an obligation to build again, to teach to others what we know, and to try with what's left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life.

• Sgt. Elias : What happened today was just the beginning. We're gonna lose this war.

  Chris Taylor : Come on. You really think so? Us?

  Sgt. Elias : We been kicking other peoples asses for so long, I figured it's time we got ours kicked.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  Maybe I finally found it, way down here in the mud. Maybe from down here I can start up again. Be something I can be proud of without having to fake it, be a fake human being.

• Chris Taylor : Day by day, I struggle to maintain not only my strength but my sanity. It's all a blur. I have no energy to write. I don't know what's right and what's wrong anymore. The morale of the men is low. A civil war in the platoon. Half the men with Elias, half with Barnes. There's a lot of suspicion and hate. I can't believe we're fighting each other when we should be fighting them.

• King : [while cleaning the latrines]  I'm too short for this shit, man. 39 and a wake-up, a pause for the cause and I'm a gone motherfucker. Back to the world!

  Crawford : Hey, I broke a hundred the other day, 92 left to go. April 17th, home to California, checkin' out the babes on the beach... the surfin's gonna be good.

  King : March, man, in Tennessee... sniff the pines... sniff that cross-mounted pussy down by the river, hot damn! Hey Taylor, how many days you got left? Three hundred and what?

  Chris Taylor : Thirty two. 332 days.

  Crawford : Shit, I can't even remember when I was 332, man. You gotta like, count backwards or something, you know like you got 40 days in? Think positive, dude.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  I've always been sheltered and special. I just want to be anonymous, like everybody else. Do my share for my country. Live up to what Grandpa did in the first war, and Dad did in the second. Well, here I am, anonymous, all right. With guys nobody really cares about. They come from the end of the line, most of them, small towns you never heard of: Pulaski, Tennessee; Brandon, Mississippi; Pork Bend, Utah; Wampum, Pennsylvania. Two years' high school's about it. Maybe if they're lucky, a job waiting for them back in a factory. But most of 'em got nothing. They're poor. They're the unwanted. Yet they're fighting for our society and our freedom. It's weird, isn't it? They're the bottom of the barrel, and they know it. Maybe that's why they call themselves grunts, 'cause a grunt can take it, can take anything. They're the best I've ever seen, Grandma. The heart and soul.

• [Chris Taylor takes his first hit of marijuana] 

  Sgt. Elias : First time?

  Chris Taylor : Yeah.

  Sgt. Elias : Then the worm has definitely turned for you, man. Feel good?

  Chris Taylor : Yeah, it feels good. I got no pain in my neck now.

  Sgt. Elias : Feeling good's good enough.

• [Manny has been killed and the platoon is looking for revenge] 

  Chris Taylor : The village, which had stood for maybe 1,000 years, didn't know we were coming that day. If they had, they would have run. Barnes was at the eye of our rage. And through him, our Captain Ahab. He would set things right again. That day, we loved him.

• Chris Taylor : Any way you cut it, Barnes is a fucking murderer.

  King : Right on.

  Rhah : Taylor, I remember when you first came in here telling me how much you admired the bastard.

  Chris Taylor : I was wrong.

  Rhah : Wrong? You ain't never been right about nothing! And dig this, you assholes, and dig it good... Barnes been shot seven times and he ain't dead. Does that mean anything to you, huh? Barnes ain't meant to die. The only thing that can kill Barnes is Barnes.

• Chris Taylor : [Taylor breaks up the gang rape of a village girl]  Don't do it! Don't do it! You fucker! What is this, huh?

  Tony Hoyt : What are you, a homosexual, Taylor?

  Bunny : What the fuck is your problem, Taylor? She's a fucking dink.

  Chris Taylor : She's a fucking human being, man! Fuck you!

• King : Hey, Taylor. How in the fuck you get here anyway? Why, you look educated.

  Chris Taylor : I volunteered for it.

  King : You did what?

  Chris Taylor : I volunteered. I dropped out of college, and told them I wanted the infantry, combat, and Vietnam.

  Crawford : You volunteered for this shit, man?

  Chris Taylor : You believe that?

  King : You's a crazy fucker, giving up college.

  Chris Taylor : It didn't make much sense. I wasn't learning anything. I figured why should just the poor kids go off to war and the rich kids always get away with it?

  King : Oh, I see. What we got here is a crusader.

  Crawford : Sounds like it.

  King : Shit. You gotta be rich in the first place to think like that. Everybody know the poor are always being fucked over by the rich. Always have, always will.

• Chris Taylor : It's the way the whole thing works. People like Elias get wasted. People like Barnes just go on making up the rules any way they want. So what do we do? Sit in the middle and suck on it. We just don't add up to dry shit, King.

  King : Whoever said we did, man? All you got to do is make it out of here, and it's all gravy. Every day, the rest of your life, gravy.

• Chris Taylor : He killed him. I know that he killed him. I saw his eyes when he came back in.

  Rhah : How do you know the dinks didn't get him? You've got no proof, man.

  Chris Taylor : Proof's in the eyes, man. When you know, you know. You were there, Rhah, and I know what you were thinking. I say we frag that fucker tonight.

• Sgt. Elias : Barnes believes in what he's doing.

  Chris Taylor : And you? Do you believe?

  Sgt. Elias : In '65, yeah. Now, no. What happened today is just the beginning. We're gonna lose this war.

• Chris Taylor : [after taking down a group of NVA soldiers]  I got two of them fuckers, man!

  Rhah : I got one!

  Chris Taylor : [cups hand to his mouth]  Ho Chi Minh sucks dead dick!

  [whoops] 

• King : Thirty nine and a wake-up, a pause for the cause, and I'm a gone motherfucker! Back to the world!

  Crawford : I hear you, man. Broke 100 the other day.

  King : No shit.

  Crawford : Ninety-two left to go. April 17, heroes, man. Home to California. I'll be sitting outside, checking out the babes on the beach. The surfing's gonna be good.

  King : March, man, in Tennessee. Sniff the pines, sniff that cross-mounted pussy down by the river. Whoo, hot damn! Hey, Taylor, how long you got left? Three hundred and what?

  Chris Taylor : Thirty-two. Three hundred and thirty-two days.

  King : Xin loi, my boy!

  Crawford : I can't even remember when I was 332, man. You gotta, like, count backwards or something. You know, like, you got 40 days in. I mean, think positive, dude.

• Chris Taylor : Die you, motherfuckers! Die!

• Francis : [Francis and Taylor are laying on stretchers]  Hey, Taylor, that you?

  Chris Taylor : Hey, Francis.

  Francis : Hey, man, how you doin?

  Chris Taylor : I'm okay. How you doing?

  Francis : Fine, man. Just fine. Hey, dig it. We two timers, man. We're gonna get out of here, boy. I'm gonna see you in the hospital. We gonna get high, high. Yes, sir.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  It's scary, 'cause nobody tells me how to do anything 'cause I'm new. Nobody cares about the new guys. They don't even want to know your name. The unwritten rule is a new guy's life isn't worth as much 'cause he hasn't put his time in yet. And they say if you're gonna get killed in the Nam, it's better to get it in the first few weeks. The logic being you don't suffer that much.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  I don't think I can keep this up for a year, Grandma. I think I made a big mistake coming here.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  Of course, Mom and Dad didn't want me to come here. They wanted me to be just like them, respectable, hard-working, a little house, a family. They drove me crazy with their goddamn world,

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  New Year's Day, 1968. Just another day, staying alive.

• Chris Taylor : [narrating]  A lot of little firefights, ambushes. We drop a lot of bombs, then we walk through the jungle like ghosts in a landscape.

• Chris Taylor : Come on. Fuck the Military Justice! Are you joking me? Whose story you think they're gonna believe? O'Neill's? Bunny's? Wolf's? Bullshit!

• King : Did you ever get caught in a mistake that you just can't get out of, King?

  Chris Taylor : There's a way out of anything, man. Just keep your pecker hard and your powder dry, and the world will turn.

• Chris Taylor : I don't even know what I'm doing. A gook could be standing three feet in front of me, and I wouldn't know it.