Wholly Original

Rating: 9/10 (9 April 2006)

Full Metal Jacket is unlike any war film that preceded it. Kubrick's minimalistic visual style proves effective.
The writing and acting in the early boot camp scenes are so well done, for me this alone qualifies the film for greatness. Ermy's Sergent Hartman is so terrifying and funny, you simply cannot and will not forget his lines or the expressions on his face.
The violence in the film are also very impressionistic. No matter how many war films you may have seen before this. The first time you see Full Metal Jacket, the death of Pvt. Pyle is shocking. You feel when Doc J and 8 Ball get hit. The impact of the violence is honest and true.
The structure of the film is very unusual. And this is welcome. The movie does not arc like a traditional war film, or traditional film of any kind for that matter. There is no 3 part structure, instead there is boot camp and combat. Before 'Nam and during 'Nam. The scenes that work as asides, like the lament for "handjob" and the hooker scene adds nice diversion and humor to the stark
There is no showy, "look at me" camera shaking. The steady cam work is clean and when there is some shake, its very subtle. All too often lately in war movies, the directors have gone wild with over-cranking and wild hand-held camera shake. The tracking scenes of Ermy in the early scenes are so powerful simply because its not about the movement of the camera, but the performance of the actor.
Full Metal Jacket is not about Vietnam per se. It is not just about war per se. It is not Platoon and it is not Saving Private Ryan. This is a good thing, because as good as those movies are in their own ways, Full Metal Jacket is better. This is not a film about war, or battle scenes, it is a film about people. It feels both real and surreal. The quiet death of Cowboy holds power precisely because there is no overpowering score or heroic framing to push the emotion to us. We feel for cowboy because he felt like a friend, not simply a character in a war movie that has his turn to die. While people constantly assail Stanley Kubrick for being cold in his approach to humanity, I think these critics have only their self to blame. His films and characters always have emotions on the screen. The Kubrick stare alone justifies my point. If you don't find emotion in a Kubrick film, then the place the emotion is lacking is in you.
At the end, Joker's resolution is not that he has lived and learned. He has not come to warn us of his tale. Instead, Joker marches with his fellow Marines free of fear and content with simply being alive. If you cannot watch Full Metal Jacket and feel something, then maybe Titanic is a film for you.