Let the Debate Begin

Rating: Null/10 (30 August 2010)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
Stanley Kubrick's film follows a Marine (Matthew Modine) from his basic training with a brutal Sny. Sgt. (R. Lee Ermey) to a final showdown in Vietnam where a group of soldiers are being picked off by a sniper.
Kubrick's return to the cinema after a seven year break came with a film genre that has pretty much played itself out in the past eight or nine years considering we got films like THE DEER HUNTER, COMING HOME, APOCALYPSE NOW as well as PLATOON. Many critics panned the film for being too familiar while others called it a masterpiece that showed the war unlike any movie before. I've always had a love-hate relationship with FULL METAL JACKET and it's probably a film I've seen more than any other Kubrick even though I think it's one of the director's lesser films. There's no question that the first hour is a masterpiece but I've never warmed up to the second half for several reasons but as any Kubrick fan knows, the more you watch his films the more you notice different things.
This latest viewing of the film had me enjoying the second half of the picture a lot more than any previous time. I think one reason was that I got to see it theatrically on a very large screen and it brought out certain elements that I had never really picked up on before including the incredible cinematography. The camera-work has always been a strong point to every Kubrick film and I really loved the way that the camera pretty much just floats around during the second half picking up the action as it moves along. This really gives the viewer a first-hand look at everything that's going on and it really does put you in the middle of the action and this is especially true during the final portion where the marines are going up against a sniper.
I still have some problems with this sequence including the interviews that are done by the film crew. I can understand why Kubrick would include these scenes but to me they really don't add enough to warrant their inclusion in the film but who knows... Perhaps my next viewing I'll see them in a different manor.
The first half of the film is probably the most unoriginal as the training camp sequence has been seen in dozens of films going all the way back to the silent era yet Kubrick shows it in a way that makes it an unnerving thrill that will wreck each of your emotions. Kubrick paints some very dark humor in the film and most of it at the expense of Pvt. Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio), an overweight idiot who gets tortured not only by the drill Sergent but also the men in his group. I've always seen the first half of the film as a portrait of how much a man can take before finally cracking up. The picture shown here certainly needs to give credit to D'Onofrio but the main credit goes to Kubrick and that amazing vision.
The way the camera glides around much like it did in THE SHINING brings the same claustrophobic sense of dread and one can't help but get caught up in the story. This portion of the film has some very funny moments but it's also incredibly disturbing simply because of the abuse Pyle takes and you can't help but feel sorry for him but at the same time you too want to hate him because of how stupid he is. The scenes are quite shocking in a way because of how raw Kubrick makes them and its this rawness that really makes this stuff seem fresh even though we've seen it before. Kubrick was a master with the camera and it's just amazing to see how quickly our emotions can change as one second we'll be laughing only to have that quickly go away as something darker happens.
This first hour can easily be called a masterpiece because of how raw and powerful it is and in the end there's really not another basic training sequence that can compare. The second half has certainly grown on me with this latest viewing but I still think there are just a few too many flaws here for me to call the film a masterpiece or even a great movie. With that said, for countless viewings I said the same thing about THE SHINING but now that's on my list as one of the greatest movies ever made.