Full Metal Plate

Rating: Null/10 (20 January 2004)

*** WARNING: Spoilers enclosed. ***

This movie came out around the same time as Platoon, and I made the mistake of seeing Platoon first. After sitting through THAT garbage-pretending-to-be-a-movie, I decided that a) I wasn't EVER going to get the time back, and b) I was done with Viet Nam movies.
So it was my misfortune that I had to wait until after this movie came out on video and I had a raging case of influenza before anyone could get me in the same room as this was being shown.
It may have been the NyQuil, or it could have been the other non-prescription "cold-remedies" that did it, but I actually laughed so much at this movie I almost puked!
Okay, so I sobered up and watched it again a while later (didn't take me a while to sober up - just to watch it again!) and the funny thing was that I enjoyed it as much the second time - after I was able to hear the parts I roared with laughter at the first time I watched.
Everyone has said something positive about R. Lee Ermey's performance, and I'm not going to be different - I didn't think it was possible to hear so much invective from one man in one sentence and keep a straight face, and even as jaded as I am, I can only look on in wonder and admiration at the passion he put into his part.
Quick synopsis: Bunch of kids from all over the USA are sent to Parris Island for Marine training, most of them get through it, they go to Viet Nam, and some of 'em die.
And if that was all the movie was about, it would still be a reasonable flick.
Watching the characters develop, deciding who to hate and who to like, listening to R. Lee Ermey ("Here, you are all equally worthless" and "Were you born worthless, or did you have to work at it?"), and finally seeing them become Marines were all very entertaining, but this was only the under-card for the main event: Viet Nam.
Of course, through all the death, destruction, and carnage all around, we were still treated to moments that were so on the dark-side, they were actually hilarious.
Papillon Soo was our "introduction" to Joker's life "In-Country" and apart from the much-quoted attempts to pick up the G.I's (Me love you LONG time), she was actually one of the most poised and least forced-looking of the cast, but even her appearance has a nasty undercurrent that took me two viewings to see.
The black humor is more prevelent as the movie gets toward the end, and there are moments of pure madness that are so obscenely ridiculous they are probably closer to the truth than the more "acceptable" scenes, but probably the funniest lines of all are from the second section of this movie ("You know there's not a single horse in the entire country of Vietnam? There's definitely something wrong with that." and the ever-colourful Animal Mother's ideas on Patriotism: "If I'm gonna get my balls blown off for a word, my word is poontang."
All-in-all, this was funny, disgusting, sad, hilarious, sickening, and moving - all the things a great movie should be.
The final scene, however, was probably the most poignant of any war-film made in a VERY long time - a bunch of kids with rifles marching through devastation singing and whistling the theme to the Mickey Mouse show .... we always revert to that which is most comfortable in times of greatest stress, and for this movie to end any other way would have weakened it to the levels of Platoon and Tour Of Duty.