All the bombast Cruise can muster is brilliantly harnessed by Stone, or more properly thwarted for a purpose. Cruise is in a wheelchair for a large part of the film, and this impediment to his usual physicality gives the film a palpable tension, allowing the actor to embody seething, impotent violence as sadness. Stone’s casting of Cruise, the military hero of Top Gun, gives the film a postmodern radicality as an antiwar statement.
— Sarah Fensom and Chris Shields (Reverse Shot)
Synopsis: Paralyzed in the Vietnam war, Ron Kovic becomes an anti-war and pro-human rights political activist after feeling betrayed by the country he fought for.