Platoon Scene 9 Summary

  • The troops are on the move, and Taylor's narrating again. It was King who found him, he says.
  • Found who? Manny. The camera shows the soldiers standing near a small river or creek, silently watching something.
  • Soon, we see what it is: Manny's body, tied to a tree and mutilated. The camera zooms in on Barnes' face.
  • He's irate, calling the enemy "motherf***ers."
  • The troops approach a village, and Taylor hints that something bad is about to happen: "They didn't know we were coming, but if they had, they would have run."
  • An old Vietnamese man is watching them approach, a cigarette in his mouth. A troop shouts out, Barnes turns around, and sees a Vietnamese guy fleeing.
  • He fires several shots, killing him.
  • The men enter the village and start rounding up the citizens, aggressively herding them like cattle. Bunny kills one of their pigs.
  • It only gets worse from here. Barnes is on a rampage. He finds an underground shelter, and screams at everybody to get out before dropping a grenade in.
  • The citizens scream and yell in Vietnamese.
  • Inside one of the huts, Taylor finds an underground shelter. He screams and swears at the people hiding in there to come out. The first one is a boy.
  • Bunny comes in, a twisted grin on his face.
  • The second one to emerge from the hole is an old woman, who comes out saying things in Vietnamese.
  • The soldiers outside meanwhile have discovered a huge cache of weapons, and a lot of rice—enough to feed a large enemy force.
  • Back inside the hut, Taylor is yelling at the Vietnamese boy, asking him why he's smiling, what he thinks is so funny.
  • His shouting escalates, and he starts firing his gun into the ground, screaming "Dance motherf***er, dance motherf***er!"
  • Bunny is egging him on, encouraging him to kill the kid. Taylor gets really close, firing more and more shots.
  • Finally, he's spent, and he turns to leave. O'Neill has been watching too.
  • Bunny calls him a "pussy," and he steps in and starts doing his own taunting. O'Neill, who can sense something bad is about to happen, encourages Bunny to forget him and leave.
  • Bunny turns to go, but then suddenly turns around and hits the kid, knocking him to the ground.
  • He approaches, and starts hitting the kid in the face with the butt of his rifle. Blood splatters on his and Taylor's faces.
  • He then smiles and says, "Holy s*** you see that f***ing head come apart man?" O'Neill has the look of lost innocence on his face. In fact, he looks like he's about to cry.
  • The woman—either the boy's grandma or mother—looks like she's dead. She's in shock after the horror that has just unfolded
  • Bunny wants to finish it off, but O'Neill is telling them to leave and to say that nobody saw anything.
  • Back outside, an old man is led towards Barnes.
  • Barnes asks him questions, and Lerner (Johnny Depp) translates.
  • The guy swears that they're not NVA or VC sympathizers, and that they have no choice but to hide weapons when the NVA demands it.
  • It's hide the weapons, or die, he suggests.
  • Barnes isn't buying it, and he has Lerner continue to ask questions about the arms and the rice.
  • A woman runs up, and starts screaming. Barnes takes off his helmet, swears, and walks the other direction.
  • He stops, watches the woman and the man argue in Vietnamese for a while. The man is trying to restrain her.
  • Finally, Barnes walks forward, takes aim, and shoots her. A kid starts crying.
  • The old man falls to his knees, and starts sobbing and saying things over the dead body of his wife.
  • Barnes yells at Lerner, and tells him to tell the man that he plans on killing more people until he gets some answers.
  • Barnes grabs a little girl, and points a pistol at her head. Lots of people are screaming.
  • Suddenly, Elias appears. He walks up to Barnes: "What the f*** do you think you're doing?" he asks.
  • Barnes tells him to stay out of it. Elias approaches and then tells Barnes: "You ain't a firing squad you piece of s***," before hitting him in the face with the butt of his rifle.
  • He then jumps on Barnes, and starts pummeling him in the face. The two grapple for a while before Wolfe and the other guys break it up.
  • Wolfe screams at them, and says the Captain has ordered them to torch the village. All weapons are to be burned, and any suspected VC rounded up.
  • Barber's "Adagio for Strings," the film's unofficial theme, starts playing as the guys set fire to the village.
  • Taylor is clearly changing. He seems tired, disgusted, and unhappy as he walks away from the flames.
  • About 100 feet from the flames, he comes across a few of the guys raping one of the little girls from the village.
  • He steps in and forces Morehouse (Kevin Eshelman) off the girl, and starts yelling at the guys.
  • Bunny asks him if he's a homosexual, and the other guys aren't too happy either. Taylor yells at them, and reminds them that she's a human being.
  • One of the guys spits on him.
  • As he's walking away with the girl, he notices Elias looking on, standing next to a huge water buffalo of some kind.
  • Elias orders them to get out of there, clearly unhappy.
  • The Vietnamese are rounded up, and marched off. Some of the soldiers carry the little kids.
  • As the group marches away, the village burns behind them. A loud explosion rings out as the scene fades.