Excellent View of Dehumanization

Rating: 10/10 (24 February 2003)

Full Metal Jacket, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is usually thought of as being two segments, although I have read here on IMDb (from the trivia section and other reviewers) that it is a three-part movie: boot camp, the Tet Offensive, and a struggle against an unseen sniper. The first segment focuses on the conflict between the troops' drill instructor, Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) and the tall and overweight Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio), with Private J.T. "Joker" Davis (Matthew Modine, the film's lead) as a bystander to this. We then see Joker in a new troop covering the Tet Offensive for Stars & Stripes, and see how he doesn't quite fit in. The third part follows the troops as they struggle against a sniper, ending the film with a rather intense scene.
Stanley Kubrick is one of those directors who make a career out of making movies which are "different"; this is not the typical Vietnam film. The focus of the movie is not action, and consequently, the average idiot moviegoer will probably find this film "boring", because they are forced to think. There are three main plot points for each section: dehumanization, the duality of man, and the physical conflict of war. Much like Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, Full Metal Jacket lacks the fake non-stop action of other war films because, as most veterans will tell you, war isn't like Saving Private Ryan. It's subdued; an entire battle may go on for two hours and only a few shots are fired. Most of the time is spent in trenches, flat on your stomach trying to not get shot. The battle with the sniper is dead-on to the gritty, drawn out, plodding nature of most battles, and done quite well.
The performances are all around good. Matthew Modine is adequate in his breakthrough role, although I must say, he looked pretty scrawny here compared to how he is now; he must have just been a kid. R. Lee Ermey gives by far the best performance ever of a drill instructor, although that could be because he wasn't performing; he was a Marine drill instructor for years, and was not allowed to fraternize with the other actors during the filming of this movie, probably so they would still be afraid of him. A definite honorable mention goes to Adam Baldwin as Animal Mother; although playing a moronic dunderhead may seem easy, there are many examples of actors trying and going way off the mark. And, of course, we all remember Vincent D'Onofrio's scary performance as the recruit driven to insanity. He gained 75 pounds for this role, which could distract some from his excellent performance.
"I AM...in a world...of sh*t."