Word: kovic
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Born on the Fourth of July is the true story of Ron Kovic, a kid from Long Island, N.Y., who got his spine shattered in Viet Nam. Back home he became bitter, questioning his old values of family and patriotism, before convincing himself he could best serve his country as a squad leader in the war against the war. This morality play could be a turnoff if it weren't for Cruise's presence. Says Tom Pollock, head of Universal Pictures, the film's patron: "Tom Cruise is all America's all-American boy. The film's journey is more...
...tended bar in Manhattan. He plays a race-car driver in his next movie, Days of Thunder, a spin-off from Cruise's latest perilous hobby. But for Born on the Fourth of July he faced a different challenge: spending almost a year sporadically in a wheelchair, as Ron Kovic...
...film spans two decades, beginning on July 4, 1956. Ron Kovic's tenth birthday is the U.S.'s 180th, and his hometown of Massapequa, N.Y., is parading its patriotism down Main Street. Disabled veterans are wheeled out, including one (played by the real Kovic, co-author of the film's screenplay) who flinches at the sound of a firecracker. It must remind him of a war that demands elegies. But young Ron -- too busy watching skyrockets that night to pay attention to a first kiss from his precocious friend Donna -- sees organized gunplay as the short road to manly glory...
...Mexican scenes, where Ron meets a prostitute who treats him gently, Cruise's tearful face expresses wonderfully conflicting feelings of joy and fear, peace and release. He makes sense of the story even when the movie doesn't. No wonder that at the end of the filming, Kovic gave | Cruise his Bronze Star. "He gave it to Tom for bravery," Stone says, "for having gone through this experience in hell as much as any person can without actually having been there." The presentation was made for the actor's 27th birthday...
...money. I wasn't a vet. The same thing that had happened to me in Viet Nam happened to me in Hollywood: I got wounded, blown up right away. I tried to get my script for Born on the Fourth of July made. That was the Ron Kovic story, about a paralyzed vet. Al Pacino was to star, but at the last minute, the money wasn't there. I felt very bitter that making serious films was impossible in Hollywood. So I did The Hand...