What Is Your Major Malfunction?

Rating: 6/10 (10 May 2001)

"Full Metal Jacket", which often seems to be more a random collection of loosely connected stories than an actual movie, dooms itself to mediocrity by telling its best stories first. The first half hour is incredibly powerful, possibly the best work that master director Stanley Kubrick ever captured on film . . . and then the film stumbles backwards, unable to maintain the impossibly high standards that it established for itself. Since the film has nowhere to go but down, down it goes, and without a unifying theme holding the film together, "Full Metal Jacket" degenerates into a confusing mess.
"Full Metal Jacket" is about the journey of one man, Private Davis(Matthew Modine), during the Vietnam War, starting with boot camp and heading inexorably onward to the horrors found in Vietnam. Throughout all his experiences, finds nothing but madness and chaos in everything he sees, from his maniacal drill instructor, Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey, whose performance is absolutely flawless in this film) to the Vietnamese "enemy" to the soldiers on his own side. In a way, the original movie poster for "Full Metal Jacket" best describes the film -- it shows a soldier's helmet decorated with both a psychedelic peace symbol and the angrily scrawled phrase BORN TO KILL.
The strength of "Full Metal Jacket" is ultimately its downfall as well - the opening training scenes at Paris Island. While Davis is essentially the main character of the film (or at least the main observer), the basic training sequence of events focuses primarily on the horrifying relationship between Drill Instructor Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) and one unfortunate recruit nicknamed Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio). To be fair, Sergeant Hartman treats all the recruits (including Davis, whom Hartman nicknames `Private Joker`) with equal amounts of venom and disdain, but it's Private Pyle that's affected by it the most, and as such, Pyle's relationship with Sergeant Hartman becomes the cornerstone of all the basic training scenes. R. Lee Ermey (who in real life was an actual Marine drill instructor before his foray into acting) puts on such a brutally honest, harrowing, and disturbing performance that it's unforgettable . . . and it easily blows the performance of almost every other actor in the movie. (Watch for a priceless scene where the sergeant tries to inspire his recruits for a sharpshooting drill . . . and uses Lee Harvey Oswald as his shining example of marksmanship.) The exception to this is Vincent D'Onofrio, who turns Private Pyle into a ticking timebomb of insecurities, wanting desperately to succeed and to please the sergeant - although, deep down, Pyle knows he'll never be anything but a failure in the sergeant's eyes. Two masterful performances, both bordering on film perfection, but since neither Sergeant Hartman nor Private Pyle continue onward with Davis to Davis's part in the Vietnam conflict, the rest of the film suffers greatly. After basic training, it's off to the Vietnam War, and this is where the film just falls apart. Some scenes are undeniably brilliant, some are uninspired and awful, but no matter the quality of the scenes, there's nothing linking them all together. Perhaps this was Kubrick's intent, to show that one of the most horrifying things about war is just how meaningless it all is. But telling the truth doesn't automatically translate into telling a great story, or even a mediocre one, and "Full Metal Jacket" degenerates into a muddled heap of conflicting messages and morals despite its raw honesty. Yes, it's sad and horrifying, but it's done in such an detached, unfocused manner that the brain becomes numb to the horror, instead of outraged by it.

Two grades for "Full Metal Jacket": An A+ for the basic training scenes, which are equal parts brilliant and distrurbing, and a C+ for the overall movie, which sadly falls apart once those basic training scenes end. Not one of Kubrick's better films.