Simply the best

Rating: 10/10 (14 April 2008)

It's one of the best war movies ever made, and the best one I had ever seen. The movie is divided in two parts. In the first one, a young man with alias Joker is taken to the army. With a group of other youngsters, he suffers tortures from general Hartman. Hartman gives stigmatizing alias for would-be marines. There is one fat and weak man, Private Pyle, in group, so Hartman terrorizes him. When he founds additional food in Pyle's bag, he decides that from that time Pyle won't be punished, but all members of the group will suffer instead of him. His friends of fate are angry with Pyle, so they beat up him. Pyle goes mad, kills general Hartman and himself.
In the second part of the movie, we can see the events in Vietnam. This part tells us the story from two sides: humanity's and soldiers. Everywhere around the battles there are a lot of cameramen and journalists. They take interviews with soldiers. We can see hard fighting man, going for the victory. But it's humanity's side of the story. Through soldiers' eyes, the war is brutal, full of violence. We can see Vietnamese prostitutes, who prostitute for a few cents. We can see soldiers' fear, too. In the beginning they want to fight, but when the war proceeds, they start fearing.
General Hartman wants to dehumanize youngsters, this shows Joker's character. When the movie proceeds, we can observe the changing of it. Truly, it shows the main idea of the movie, too. At the beginning of the training, Joker is a simple youngster. He helps for Pyle, or at least he isn't angry of a fat man. But because of Hartman's dehumanizing 'training', Joker becomes cruel. When all group members beat up Pyle, Joker joins them. When we see this character at war, we can be shocked by his brass talks and cruel actions. But this isn't all. At the end of the movie, because of the fear, he becomes wiser. He says, that he's happy, that he's alive. I think, you understood, what means full metal jacket, aren't you?
I must say, that after watching this movie I felt, that my brain is working harder. There was so because of solving that puzzle, which the director left for me. It was very interesting. Because of the great plot, movie didn't let me break away. The world of the movie, characters are impressive and strong. I hardly recommend this masterpiece to everyone!