A Been-There-Done-That War Film

Rating: 7/10 (6 June 2008)

Kubrick may be best known for his visuals, style, and creativity. "Full Metal Jacket" isn't all that great to look at it, and doesn't have any great stylistic flare worth noting, and is the same old recycled and clichéd settings and scenes that we've seen over and over. "Full Metal Jacket" is a kind of disjointed film told through a boot camp setting in the first half and a war setting in second half. The basic training elements of the film have been done numerous times, but nothing like this. This is "Full Metal Jacket'" strongest element as we see some great film-making of things we've seen done numerous times before, but here; Kubrick brings us one of the most memorable characters in film history with Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). Ermey is fantastic and plays the part as if he's been through it all and seen it all before (That's because he has). The basic training is brutal and if you think the Marine Corps is brutal; "Full Metal Jacket" raises the bar and heightens reality to unprecedented levels. The first half of the film is done to near masterful levels. There were only two real issues: The inconsistent acting from Vincent D'Onofrio who plays Gomer Pyle and the never ending shellacking that Hartman rains down on his young men. D'Onofrio is great in one scene and absolutely over-the-top in the next-- over-the-top in a campy sense. Private Pyle is a "fat-body," and a screw up. He manages to screw everything up to the point were he hides a jelly donut in his footlocker. We see scene after scene of Pyle screwing up as D'Onofrio goes so far over-the-top that at times he puts this look on his face as if he's trying to imitate a person with Down Syndrome- it gets that bad. In most scenes his face works to eerie perfection. Hartman, then tells his men that they need to motive Pyle because he has failed, thus the corps failed him because they have not helped him motivate Pyle. So they beat him one night as he sleeps with bars of soap wrapped in towels and everything changes. Pyle starts talking to his gun. He becomes an excellent shot and a marksman and starts looking more and more like a soldier ready for combat except we get the not-so- subtle feeling that Pyle is going to go AWOL, and, of course, he does. None of the characters seem to know, but we sure do. This will bring us to the best scene in the entire film, which takes place half way through the film. Pyle becomes the second best character, only to Hartman, but once we leave the basic training scenes we're thrown into a war we've seen before and a war we've seen captured on film much better. "Full Metal Jacket" offers a lot of laughs in the first half of the film and actually goes for too many laughs with Hartman in the opening scene as Kubrick and company just go for the next joke about their sexual orientation. It's funny and Hartman has some great one-liners, but for a drill instructor it gets to the point where he becomes the comedian instead of the drill instructor. After so much it got the point where I was thinking, "When is he going to get back to his speech and stop calling these guys fags and queers 15,000 different ways?"
"Full Metal Jacket" shows how dehumanizing war can be as we see "born to kill" written on the helmet of Joker (Mathew Modine) with a peace sign on his chest that represent the "duality of man" (as we're told). Basically this is questioning the idea that war will solve the world's issues- killing people will create peace. The problem with the film is that we get all of what Kubrick tries to sell us about the effects of war in the first half of the film, when, interesting enough, doesn't even take place during a war. Maybe that's why it made it so strong, but the final half is the same exact theme and message, but now we're actually in the war and it doesn't have as big an impact. The action sequences and the fight sequences are clichéd and stupid and look amateurish with the slow motion shots of blood spattering everywhere, and echoing cries of pain are heard from afar. This is supposed to strike a cord in you, that's why Kubrick elongates the pain. In "Saving Private Ryan," a film done over ten years later, in a very similar situation, Spielberg doesn't use any camera tricks or slow motion shots to make us feel a certain way. He just shows it as it would happen: Realistically. This creates a much stronger reaction than having a guy slowly fall and flop around as we're being told how to feel. It comes off as an unnatural and unrealistic force feeding because Kubrick is almost afraid his audience won't care for these guys, so he tries to make us care. "Full Metal Jacket," ultimately doesn't have much direction or anything new to say on the subject. It's a film about the soldiers, but the soldiers are all clichés. They're all the same exact people who are represented as nothing but barbaric animals. I don't know if his intention was to glorify veterans and troops, but this film is insulting to the men and woman who protect and serve.