Full Metal Jacket Kuwait

Rating: 7/10 (16 July 2006)

Though the latest effort from Sam Mendes, whose first two films I tremendously admire, seem to borrow a bit too much from Stanley Kubrick's films- (not just "Full Metal Jacket") and the film loses much of its momentum in the third act, it is a good war film. One of Mendes' main strenghts is attention for detail. I had first watched the first part of "Jarhead" a week ago, but something came up. I re-watched it in its entirety, and I noticed several interesting tidbits, such as Jamie Foxx's character reading the bible while on the TWA flight, and the lighting during the flashback sequence, that made me appreciate Mendes' knack for symbolism and detail. The film is in many ways about the Iraqi war of today as much as Desert Storm, and it makes little effort to seclude that. While I fully agree with the politics of the film, I think it is technically well-done enough to receive admirers from those who do not share the left-of-center sentiment that Mendes is expressing. As someone who appreciates Westerns, I loved many parallels that this film has with films like "The Searchers," including a magnificent shot of two soldiers in the desert with the sun in the background. The cast is fairly good. I think Jamie Foxx is the one who is most in character at all times, but there are no weak performances at all. The film has many overt references to other war films, including "The Deer Hunter" and "Apocalypse Now!" but in addition to 'Jacket' there are some similarities with films like "Platoon" and "Coming Home." I suppose if the line in the film that says 'No two wars are different. No two wars are the same" is accurate then one could add "No two war movies are different. No two war movies are the same," as well.