Country: United States
Genre: Drama/ Suspense
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Year: 1987
Rating: 
TRASH CINEMA ESSENTIAL MOVIE
Full Metal Jacket deserves it’s status as one of the greatest war movies ever made. In a way, it’s really two movies: a riveting account of basic training, and a depiction of city warfare.
Let’s start with the best first. The basic training sequence, which lasts about 45 minutes, is one of the finest pieces of film ever shot. In terms of writing, acting, shot design, and dramatic structure, it’s near perfect.
The segment starts with the shaving of heads and we understand instantly: we’re witnessing the Marine Corp’s opening salvo at systematically stripping the new recruits of their veneer of civilization. They’re to be molded into killers by Sergeant Hartman (a fantastic R. Lee Ermey), who delivers a blistering nonstop tirade of creative profanity at his charges, the better to break them so he can instill the necessary savagery that will save them in combat. Hartman gives the recruits nicknames: Joker (Matthew Modine), Cowboy (Arliss Howard), and most tellingly, Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio, in the mesmerizing performance that jump-started his career). As the training continues, the focus narrows onto Gomer Pyle, a hapless, overweight young man who lacks the killer instinct. Will Gomer Pyle make it through basic training or will he become a stone killer, a shining example of Marine Corp training and discipline? The answer to that question packs a devastating punch.
What’s more surprising is how funny the basic training sequence is. I’m not sure if the humor makes Full Metal Jacket harder or easier to take.
The second half of Full Metal Jacket doesn’t have the same intensity and sense of purpose as the basic training sequence. It is more episodic. Much of it has to do the psychology of soldiers, and I’m not sure that I buy all of it. Full Metal Jacket improves drastically when it gets to the offensive against the city of Hue. The area is full of bombed out buildings. Death could be hiding anywhere. The sequence culminates in a situation involving a sniper that’s almost unbearably suspenseful.
I’m not sure if the Hue offensive works as straight war reportage. I suspect not. I’m guessing the palm trees were strategically placed on the sets. But as a piece of film, it’s superb. The art direction and camerawork provide a paradoxically beautiful depiction of urban warfare. It’s gut-wrenching to be sure, but if you took stills at random from this sequence, they could function as paintings. It’s fantastic filmmaking.
The Hue offensive works dramatically, but in terms of character, it’s pretty shallow. The same can’t be said for the basic training sequence which opens the picture. With almost no voiceover or exposition of any kind, director Stanley Kubrick simply runs through exquisitely selected moments plucked from the basic training timeline, building character arcs, dramatic structure, and suspense on the fly. It’s seamless and flows like butter, achieving a dramatic purity and inevitability like one of John Donne’s poems.
In fact, that’s what Stanley Kubrick has given us in Full Metal Jacket: a lyric poem about war.
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