Child soldiers

Rating: 6/10 (13 May 2013)

Obviously a very highly regarded movie directed by the great Stanley Kubrick and one I'm long overdue watching, my problem being this I'm not struck on war movies and Vietnam films in particular.
That said no-one could gainsay the power of the film and its bloody realism has had a direct influence on subsequent films down the years like "Blackhawk Down" and "The Hurt Locker" to name but two.
Shot in two distinct sections, the new marine recruits boot camp training under the Training Director from hell and the active tour of duty in Vietnam, both have shocking violently shocking outcomes which impact vividly on the memory. Arguably nothing is more eye-opening than the ritual humiliation the new young crop suffer as the desensitising process of turning them into thoughtless, unfeeling killing machines sees them go through unimaginably relentless mental torture and physical hardship, before one sensitive conscript is pushed too far.
No sooner have you got over the shock sequence that culminates the training than the action is switched to Vietnam as we now see the same conscripts in real-life action, where for all their battle-hardened instillation, their inexperience causes them to make blundering errors with tragic consequences.
Although I was impressed by Kubrick's direction with his famed roving, subjective camera- shots, in the end, I felt as if my senses had been assaulted for two hours, no doubt, partially his aim in the first place. There's no real structure to the film either, just before and after combat and I failed to see the young men bond together into a fighting unit, which again may have been intentional.
I got the obvious message about thrusting completely unprepared young men into the white heat of battle but the constant violence, profanity and induced stress ultimately wasn't to my taste even as I accept the strength of the message it was putting across.