PREMIUM CABLE
`FOUR BROTHERS’ (star)(star)1/2
7 p.m., Showtime
Director John Singleton and a good cast do what they can with a hokey tale owing much of its ethos to the blaxploitation cycle. “Four Brothers” concerns four adopted brothers avenging their mother’s mysterious murder. As a cop investigating the killing, Terrence Howard makes every scene his own.
MPAA rating: R.
–Michael Phillips
BASIC CABLE
`PLATOON’ (star)(star)(star)(star)
10:15 p.m., AMC
Oliver Stone’s “Platoon,” based on his own experiences as a young rifleman in the Vietnam War, came as a real shocker in 1986 — and it’s still a blistering show. . . . Through the battle tour of surrogate character Chris (Charlie Sheen), an 18-year-old Army recruit in 1967, Stone gave us a raw portrait of Vietnam. It was nerve-rendingly realistic and exciting, but it also became something more: a terrifying symbolic allegory about the war between good and evil, fascism and democracy, in the American soul.
MPAA rating: R.
–Michael Wilmington
