War is hell

Rating: 9/10 (20 February 2004)

Long before the current wave of "realistic" (i.e. gritty, gory and shocking) war movies, Stanley Kubrick delivered this gem of a war movie.

"Full Metal Jacket" tells two stories: the boot camp training of a group of marines for the Vietnam war, and the actual war where we meet up again with some of the soldiers from boot camp. In terms of war movies, it's a fairly modest undertaking...there are no large-scale battles(like the beach landing in "Saving Private Ryan") and few action scenes.
Instead, Kubrick uses a series of fairly small-scale incidents and events to portray a gruesome image of war. There's no annoying flag-waving here, like in so many American movies that glorify war. There's no clear bias towards the US or Vietnam either. This movie isn't about who was right in that specific war, it's about war in general. And the message it sends is clear: war is hell, it brings up the worst in people. All in all, I think that's a far more valid view than all the heroism war movies normally throw at you.

Generally, "Full Metal Jacket" is excellent. The cast is relatively unknown, but they all deliver very good performances, especially R. Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant of course. The movie has a very gritty and realistic feel to it, and contains very sharp dialogs, a lot of truly shocking scenes, as well as some undeniably funny ones (although the humor is admittedly very black). Like in most of Kubrick's movies the pace is a little slower than desired, but in this case that's easily forgiveable.
Movies like "Saving Private Ryan", "Platoon", and "Black Hawk Down" might initially appear to be much better and much more entertaining, but after repeated viewing, the small-scale and modest approach of "Full Metal Jacket" works a lot better than its more spectacular but ultimately less satisfying competitors.
***1/2 out of **** stars