Kubrick's War.

Rating: 9/10 (11 February 2006)

Full Metal Jacket (1987)
Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard, Adam Baldwin, Dorian Harewood.
There is one scene in 'Full Metal Jacket' that I want to talk about first. It is the scene near the very beginning with Leonard Lawrence and Gunnery Sgt. Hartman. Lawrence thinks that Hartman is very funny, but as the film goes on, he starts to hate him more and more.
'Full Metal Jacket' is really a different type of war film. It doesn't deal with war battles between Vietnam and America, but battles against ourselves. I don't mean like gun battles, I mean the way that we might feel when we see this film, we realize that we basically fought each other.
Soldiers are trained by a mean drill instructor to begin killers, then you actually witness them doing it. The film is divided into two halves. The first half revolves mostly around Pvt. Joker, Pvt. Lawrence (Gomer Pyle), and Drill Instructor Hartman. The soldiers go through training at a South Carolina Marine Corps camp. Joker is the second leader in the group, and Pyle is ranked lower in the platoon because Hartman dislikes him and believes that he cannot do anything. Pyle doesn't have any friends on the squad and only is good at one thing, combat training.
The second half is set in Vietnam. It revolves around Joker, Animal Mother, Eightball, and Cowboy, one of Joker's old buddies from training. They go off to fight as gunmen in the war, but also must save their fellow soldiers. Joker believes that war is a living hell, but at the same time, he believes that after fighting there will soon be peace.
'Full Metal Jacket' probably isn't the best war film ever made, but it is a great film. It has a good story, another brilliant direction by Stanley Kubrick, and interesting characters. The acting in the movie is just almost perfect. Lee Ermey gives his best and very memorable performance as Sgt. Hartman, mostly because he was a drill instructor in real life. Modine and D'Onofrio were also very good. Dorian Harewood and Adam Baldwin deliver clever lines, and are interesting characters. There are much humor in the film, and it actually is funny. Some of Ermey's line are very clever. It's interesting how he they thought up all of his lines.
At times, the film doesn't really fit together. It shows some unrelated material to the story. It loses its pace near the beginning of the second half, but recovers a little later in the movie. Joker's (Modine) narration throughout the movie goes no where. It's horribly told. I'm not saying that Modine was a bad actor, because he wasn't, but the narration sounds like he read it off of flashcards. The first scene that I mentioned really made feel bad for Pvt. Pyle, and it got worse later in the film. Pyle seems like he is Hartman's main victim, mostly because he seems worthless.
'Full Metal Jacket' is a really good movie and almost a classic. I don't know how it could have been better, but it is fine the way it is. It is one of the best from Kubrick, and is underrated by some people, but is loved by others. Overall the first half is one of the most effective pieces of film I've ever seen, whereas the second is more or less just good. 4.5 out of 5 stars.