Should have ended after the first part...

Rating: 5/10 (21 September 2009)

This was a film in which greatness was in Stanley Kubricks grasp and he failed to grab it. The first part of this film (the BT part) was so convincing that it really should have been left at that. I did not need to see the second part with the typical Kubrick trademarks and violence of Vietnam to be convinced that war is hell. The part of Sgt Hartman played by R. Lee Ermy made you believe that war is hell, and he is not so much a mean person but mean in a sense to the young new recruits because he knows that the real terror will start once they are on the ground in Viet Nam and he needs to prepare them for that. His toughness to his men take their toll on reject Pvt Pile (Vincent D'Onofrio) in which the stress of BT reaches a point of Sgt Hartman getting killed and D'Onofrio putting a rifle in his mouth. The first part of this film was truly terrifying as you could feel what it must have been like to know you were going to Vietnam after BT and what may await you once you were there. The second part once the troops were on the ground in Nam was not what the first part had prepared me for. In fact it played like a comedy and was a bit silly. The sets and locations were not convincing and it all lead around Matthew Modines character Pvt. Joker who writes for a military newspaper, who has a chance to go with group of grunts into a blown out city and experiences combat for the first time. Basically just running around in and out of buildings and getting shot at with jokes in-between. I felt it contradicted everything the first part was about and what I thought it was preparing me for. Maybe it was Kubricks anal way of directing in which he would do a scene 35+ times that did this one in....who knows but the real title of this story before it was changed to Full Metal Jacket was "The Short Timers." They should have left it at that.