We might have just found something you're great at, Private!

Rating: 9/10 (30 March 2015)

Full Metal Jacket is undoubtedly the finest war film I have ever seen. Startlingly authentic and deeply intimate, the film is carried by a sharp screenplay, spectacular direction and some bravos performances. Though the film does have central characters, the main character here is the war itself and the story of recruit to hero. Some may argue that Matthew Modine's Private Joker should have been a more developed character, but I would argue he was given just the right amount of depth.
The first 45 minutes - the story of Staff Sergeant Hartman and Private Pyle - is a flawless masterpiece. A combination of Hartman's spectacular one-liners, delivered with such flawless execution, and Vincent D'Onofrio's Oscar-worthy and woefully under shadowed performance, for the entire first act of the film I was captivated. The drills are real, the characters are real, and the mental anguish of Gomer Pyle is very real. The film dips very slightly when we go to Vietnam, as it misses any characters with the memorability of Pyle and Hartman. However, the film's superb screenplay and frighteningly staged battle scenes - superior in feel if not quality to every other war film I've seen - more than keep you engrossed.
Kubrick's direction is masterful. There are moments throughout - tracking shots, behavioural quirks of minor characters, the dialogue of a dying Vietnamese, the hiring of R Lee Ermey - that scream "master of his field". In one scene, a lieutenant is asked about casualties as he stands next to a war grave. Clearly unaware of what to do, he constantly stops and smiles for the camera, a horrific juxtaposition given the horror just behind him. It is moments like this where Kubrick is to be considered in the conversation for Best Director of all time.