Definitely Kubrickian

Rating: Null/10 (17 November 2003)

SPOILERS.
Nobody in Hollywood would touch Vietnam with a ten-foot pole until Oliver Stone's "Platoon" became a "major motion picture." It was followed quickly by Coppola's "Apocalypse Now," which had been in production for years. And then came Kubrick's take, "Full Metal Jacket," which, being last in the series and therefore not much of a novelty, didn't get the kind of reviews the first two had gotten.
A strange thing about all three of the films is that none was made by a first-line storyteller. Stone's film was about good and evil that happened to be set in Vietnam. Coppola's expressed his own obsessions. (He announced to a French audience, "My film isn't about Vietnam. My film IS Vietnam." This got lots of applause because the French love big metaphysical statements.) Kubrick's film has his fingerprints all over it. The lighting, the ironic humor, the static shots of people lined up motionlessly with regard to one another, the lowering skies of an unmistakable English twilight. But, most relevant, its episodic structure. Kubrick gave us straight narratives, pretty much, with taut plots, until "2001," when the structure became more, let us say, cubistic.

This one is divided into two main parts, not quite independent of one another, although there isn't much overlap. The first part is a hilarious and yet tragic view of Marine Corps boot camp. R. Lee Ermy is fantastic and became a media icon after his performance here. That the man is no real actor was demonstrated when he made a movie in which he plays a zombie or a pod person -- I forget the name of it, possibly a remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." You will find that your memory of Ermy's idea of a zombie is indelible. Part two of this film follows Mathew Modine to Vietnam where he undergoes various adventures. This second section is filled with jokes that only half hide their dramatic content. "You've gotta hack it," says a Marine to his dying comrade, "you're my favorite turd."

And there is an exchange between Modine and a colonel in the field that has more resonance today than it did when the film was first released. The colonel snaps at Modine: "I ask nothing of my men except that they obey my every command as if it was the word of God. We have to bring freedom to these people because inside of every gook there's an American trying to get out. We've all got to keep our heads until this Peace craze blows over."
I think it's a better film than it's usually credited for being. The comedic leavening doesn't stop it from ultimately being a tragedy. It ends on a note that is a mockery of jolliness, the Marines marching back to base singing the Mickey Mouse song from the TV program that they grew up with. But Modine has just deliberately shot and killed a wounded young Vietnamese woman who was a VC sniper, forsaking the jokes that had enabled him to keep his distance from the others. (Watch the transformation in Modine's features as he aims his pistol and pulls the trigger.) Some bunch of Mousketeers.