What going to war is all about, Stanley Kubrick style!

Rating: Null/10 (27 December 1999)

Although there have been countless films made about the Vietnam war, Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket" stands alone as one of the most powerful and most intense war films ever made! It's interesting because it doesn't necessarily show the horrors of war as it does show the horrors of preparing for it. I've had nightmares about going into the army after watching this film! It's as hellish, if not more, than the grounds of Vietnam where the training will all prove to be of good use. The most amazing aspect of "Full Metal Jacket" is that it manages to present the "war is hell" message without showing too much hell. The combat sequences aren't as action packed and explosives laden as "Saving Private Ryan" or "Platoon", nor should they be. The sniper sequence was incredible, even though there weren't bodies everywhere and bullets all over! I'm not saying that those things didn't happen, but I am saying that the sniper sequence shows how much can be done with so little. It was awesome! It really does give a realistic, intense feel to the film's transition to Vietnam. But the film's real driving force is the boot camp half of the film. Here, we literally see ordinary men shoved into a meat tenderizer and emerge as killers. This idea is one that has put off many viewers, because the idea of the military is that the soldiers work as a "brotherhood", in which they watch out for each other, instead of a bunch of crazies out of control running rampant. What many people have missed though is that "Full Metal Jacket" is not showing the reason why the military turns people into killers, it shows how they do it. And how they do it may be just as bad as the actual battlegrounds of war itself. It's terrifying! I wouldn't call it one of the greatest movies ever made, far from it. But I do believe it to be a masterpiece from one of the world's greatest film directors. It's groundbreaking and it shows us a different "hell" of war that audiences haven't seen before, the boot camp!