A Unique Military Movie

Most of the movies about the military respond to the times - after WW2 and in the Golden Age it was pretty much gung-ho and pathetically unrealistic, mostly propaganda. Then Platoon came out and somehow that dictated to show soldiers as the victims / saviors and this is still going on today. But this movie is different. It really I think showed in good detail the motivations of a pair of lifers by forcing them to contemplate on what they were probably like at the beginning of their naval lives and how much they've changed. The characters of Mule and Buddsky had such real motives and personality and you could see why they were in the Navy quite well, especially when Buddsky said he couldn't stand going to trade school and being stuck in the 'smog,' and that he liked being at sea. Or when Mule described why he's in the Navy. Any military movies these days, where the protaganists aren't victims or reluctant fighters, they are cardboard cutouts, pretty much, like die-hard Bruce Willis or Top Gun pilots. But Buddsky and Mule were very much real. The fight was realistic, not a karate match, but something over almost before it begins. The whores didn't have golden hearts. And the northeast corridor of the US was a lot like you see it from trains and busses, rather dirty and bleak in the winter. Altogether this is a unique military movie because it shows sailors who are very realistic.