Strong stuff - but made far too late to matter

Rating: 8/10 (23 May 2003)

A group of new recruits train for Vietnam in a harsh boot camp, before going off to fight for real.
Kubrick's ability to mix black comedy with tension and action is certainly amazing; and you could even dismiss it as fluke if he hadn't achieved it before. There are scene's in this movie that are so profound and memorable that you will be able to remember them clearly a 100 movies later (he is the master of the sustained climax), but yet the whole project doesn't hang together at all.
Other movies have simply been here before and - it has to be said - done it all a whole lot better. Platoon, being the best example.
R Lee Ermey performance as the bawling sergeant major should have won him a best supporting actor Oscar (he won other awards). Nevermind, it must be one of the best supporting performances of all time and will be remembered when most of the actual winners have been forgotten.
As has been said before, only the first part (in boot camp) really works. The training camp scene actually has its own climax and makes the point of the movie all by itself.
Strangely the tension eases when the battle actually begins: we are, by then, all geared up for the death, tragedy and waste that we all know is coming. Kubrick forgets that we spend our lives watching movies - not hiding in a some luxury cave like him. "War is hell" - well hold the front page!
(The most amazing thing is that the scenes of carnage and wrecked buildings was actually filmed in central London. Indeed boat trippers going down the Thames could glimpse the movie being made and the sets were simply left after they were blown apart, making them a tourist attraction by themselves. They have since being demolished to make way for new apartment blocks.)
If only Kubrick had made this film shortly after (or even during) Vietnam. What an impact it would have had. Despite this, it is a brilliant film in parts and pretty good in overall impact, but he loses touch with what other directors have always known, "to care with have to know." Here we barely know anybody beyond basic name recognition and no character actor can (or is allowed) to steal the picture other than Ermey who only has a limited first half role.
It could, and should, have been a whole lot better, but at the time of production Kubrick was clearly a man not listening to voices outside his own head and clearly not aware of how dated much of his technique now is: Simply running around with hand-held cameras doesn't, by itself, create great drama and tension. Not even when you more-or-less invented the technique yourself.