One of the Best War Films out there

Rating: 10/10 (15 May 2003)

Hello everyone. I chose this day to write my comments on "Full Metal Jacket" even though I've seen it over 100 times. You see, this morning, my brother, a very proud US Marine died. He didn't have fanfare, he wasn't well known. But one thing he did love was this film. I'm younger than he was, and when this film came out, this was all he talked about. How realistic it was, how well done it was. I didn't see it until two years after its release as it made its way into Select Cable.
To be honest, I am not the "War" films type although there are a select few that go beyond the "War" theme and get right to the heart of the matter. Full Metal Jacket is one of them. (Spoilers?) To me the film is in two halves: first half is the drafting of these men from all over the USA to be de-humanized, de-sensitized, de-void of all emotions and rained only to kill. It didn't matter what you thought you'd become, you were a killing machine. This was told though a group of recruits in the US Marine Corps on their way to Vietnam. This shows it was not a smooth road for all of them and it shows what happens when a human is pushed beyond...to be trained to kill. The second half of the film follows those who survive and actually go to Vietnam and that isn't a cake walk either. These men had to encounter the enemy that came in many forms and fashions and also had to confront whatever was left in their human sides as well.
This is NOT a film for everyone. It is rough. Some parts will be unbelievable to many people out there for they will ask: "How could we let these young men be treated this way?" We did. We do. We always will. There are superb films out there about the coming home experience and I am glad this film didn't go into that and just did the two halves. The Direction is wonderful. The actors were wonderful, I believed them. It came together nicely.
Upon my first viewing of this film, I was shocked. I called my brother, the Marine, and talked with him about this. Many of the things I wrote in this review came from those conversations over the years to put this film into a perspective for me, as someone who was too young to remember the Vietnam war, the draft, but who have had those in her family that had. Talking to my brother, who said, there was much in this film that hit the right tone, the "inside" of how Sergeants are and how many recruits aren't equip to stand through this, and how their bunkmates react, when I reviewed this film from that moment on I saw it in a whole different and even more upsetting light.
An excellent film, one of the top 50 of the 20th Century, on of Stanley Krubeck's best. I must repeat, not for everyone's taste for it is gritty, violent..but maybe if everyone saw this just once, they'd really think about what it really means to send our men and women out to battle and what for.