Shocking to see the material, but is it really entertaining? **1/2 (out of four)

Rating: 6/10 (28 June 2001)

FULL METAL JACKET / (1987) **1/2 (out of four)
By Blake French:
With Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" you get two masterfully constructed movies for the price of one-a movie about boot camp and a movie about Vietnam. Unfortunately, under most circumstances, neither film is worth viewing.
It's shocking to watch the risks Kubrick takes with this material. From the opening shots, against a soundtrack featuring "Goodbye Dolly, Hello Vietnam," images flash before our eyes of marine recruits getting their heads shaven clean for training camp. Cut to a rude, obnoxious, drill instructor, Sergeant Hartman (Lee Ermey), shouting curses at these young recruits as he passes down the double aisle of bunks at a basic training camp in Paris Island. "From now on you'll speak only when spoken to, the first and last words out of your mouth will be sir!" In this segment, we witness the agonizing training sessions and dills that these poor young men must conquer. Most of them do a fine job. All except for a moronic, uncoordinated maggot nicknamed Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio). The personalities of Hartman and Pyle clash like water and oil, or more like fire and propane.
Little dialogue exists with in this personality conflict, but there sure is a hell of a lot of screaming and shouting of disgusting insults. I wanted relief from the Sergeant's nonstop obscenity and discrimination. Lee Ermey does wonderful things with his character, but the character is repulsive. He gave me a headache to the extent that I had to turn the movie off momentarily and walk outside to clear my mind and take a few deep breaths of fresh air.
Considering a lot of Ermey's dialogue was improvised, I admire phrases like these. This kind of dialogue is great if you're looking for a hard-edged, realistic look at military training camps. But play that same kind of tone and dialogue for over forty-five minutes, then is it really entertaining? Engaging? If you answer yes, then I have just learned things about you I did not want to know.
The second segment of "Full Metal Jacket" takes off when the trained military troops arrive in Vietnam. The movie then disintegrates into a series of detached, self contained war sequences. Most war movies, regardless of how disturbing or graphic, secure at least some rank within my emotions. "Saving Private Ryan," "Platoon," "Apocalypse Now," and even "Tigerland" captured my heart in very different ways, but this movie feels detached to all humanity and spirit. There is nothing harrowing about scene after scene of hopeless characters getting shot to hell if we don't feel for those characters. Kubrick eliminates his only two interesting characters in the first segment, leaving his second segment to shrivel and die.

Although I disliked the film, I admire many things about "Full Metal Jacket." The film's serious attitude towards its subjects. Kubrick's ironic message that people produce killers, and that killers are not born, reverses his own stance as seen in "A Clockwork Orange." Kubrick's style also shows through; the film's finale holds true to his sardonic sense of theme and moralization. The two films also comment on each other. I never knew the phrase "I am in a world of shit," could carry so much impact and meaning. I also liked how Kubrick refrained from glamorizing any aspects of the film. In several juicy sequences, there were distinctive possibilities of sex. While there is sex in the film, Kubrick avoids portraying sex on screen. I think he did this to evade a potential attraction and distraction to the audience.
Stanley Kubrick was one of the most vivid, courageous directors that will ever live. He was a perfectionist, always creating a true portrait of his visions. He took risks. Some of them worked, some of them did not. "Full Metal Jacket" displays a stunning quality of filmmaking; it was nominated for an Oscar for its achievement in screen writing. But the movie fails to actually entertain and enlighten. I was disappointed in the film. Many audiences will remember Kubrick's portrait of Vietnam as a film that defined a generation, but it's too bad that the film didn't do it entertainingly.