One of the best movies ever, until the second half

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 2002)

This was one of the best movies I've ever seen about the war, except the war parts. The first half was brutal, powerful, sometimes painful to watch (like the blanket party scene), and actually pretty funny at times (the stuff that the drill sergeant say is hard not to laugh at); but as the fresh Marines are sent off to Hell, the movie seems to go with it.

When I first saw my thoughts were "if the first half was that good, than the second will be unbelievable", but it lost its edge and its intensity. The sniper scene was the best part of the second half, but still falls short.

Now that I look back, though, it would be pretty damn hard to top the boot camp parts, i mean, those scenes were insane in the best way. Vincent D'Onfrio made the whole movie. He was completely believable with his decent into madness, much like Bobby D in "Taxi Driver". The drill sergeant also made this movie, because he was very funny, but at the same time horrifying.

Normally when the second half of a movie fails, i don't like it, because that is more significant that the first part, but in this case, i am willing to give it a good rating, just because the scenes with D'Onofrio were so incredible. This is a very gritty, disturbing, and great movie, like all of Kubrick's films, so be advised for profuse (but at time comical) swearing and bloody, gooey and sometimes exploding violence. Not great, but still very good. I also think that "Paint it Black" was a great way to stop this movie, because it didn't end, it just stopped (which was one of the things I DID like about the end). 8/10