Full Metal Jacket

For the month of November, I will be talking about movies based on the Vietnam War. Seeing how November has Veterans Day, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Let’s start off the month with the 1987 classic and one of my favorite films, “Full Metal Jacket.”

Stanley Kubrick, after seven years since filming “The Shining,” returned to filmmaking with this amazingly well-done, profane, dark humored and miserable antiwar Vietnam War film. Dennis Schwartz said in his review, “Though it makes for a fascinating watch, it's steely-eye cold and less about the Vietnam War than about how the Marine Corps turns its recruits into killers. It's based on the novel ''The Short Timers'' by Gustav Hasford, and is written by Kubrick, Hasford and Michael Herr.” The film is split into two parts. The first part is about the newly recruited Marines undergoing a rigorous boot camp in Parris Island, South Carolina, while the second part is about the actual Vietnam War.

In the first part, the aggressive chosen recruits are called maggots by their cruel very lout drill instructor, Gunner Sgt. Hartman, played by R. Lee Ermey (former real-life Marine DI), who prepares them to be murderers, have no fear and give everything to the corps. In his opening speech he clearly states that he thinks everyone is equally worthless. Hartman goes around to each recruit and gives them nicknames, including Private Snowball (Peter Edmund), a Texas recruit is renamed Private Cowboy (Arliss Howard) after being told who actually comes from the state, a comedian who does a John Wayne impression gets punched in his stomach and is renamed Private Joker (Matthew Modine), and the smiling stupid platoon misfit who makes Hartman really annoyed is renamed Private Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio). Hartman intimidates Gomer Pyle throughout training for being useless, unintelligent and fat, and gets the other soldiers in the platoon to also hate him by punishing them when Pyle makes a mistake. Under so much antagonizing and humiliation Pyle finally breaks, and what he does is just frightening.

Schwartz said, “In part two, Joker, the film's nominal hero and narrator and the star recruit of basic training, is in Vietnam as a reporter for Stars and Stripes and after confronting his slick CO with sarcastic remarks about the war's progress is shipped out to the combat zone at the height of the Tet Offensive in 1968. Joker, the gutsy humorous humanist, wears a peace symbol on his battle fatigues and, on his helmet, the slogan ''Born to Kill.'' But in the end, the soldier with confusing dual purposes lives up to his Marine indoctrination to kill for the corps, as the combat mission ends in the film in the ruins of the city of Hue (a Kubrick symbol for the useless destructive nature of war, that brings everyone down).”

Nobody’s a hero like John Wayne, as Kubrick’s purpose to show the violence in training soldiers, the madness of any war and how militarism causes the regular dehumanization needed to turn men into heartless killers, are all related to the war-hungry American society and how there can no winners following such a limited faith.

The completely all-male cast (besides a few Vietnamese prostitutes) gets into their roles and gives amazing performances. The military dialogue is filled with vulgarity, which gives the film a heartless power separating it from many others. Schwartz ended his review by saying, “It was filmed in England, where Kubrick used a military barracks outside London to substitute for Parris Island and used a deserted gasworks in London's East End, a plant area that had been bombed-out during WWII, to great effect as the Hue combat area.”

I know that people seem to not like this movie after the training scenes, but I think it was actually nice to see how war can change a man completely. I would say, especially in this day in age, that the whole movie needs to be seen and not just the first part. The second part needs to get a better understanding and needs to be liked, especially since I think it has been wrongfully hated and does show the realism of war. Kubrick really outdid himself with this one, and it’s not the usual traits he has used, which is some scary horror films. He does a war film, and he does an amazing job here. Definitely see this, as it is one of the best war films ever made.

Now, I will need some much deserved rest. I will be taking a whole week off and will not be making another review until next Friday when I continue “Vietnam War Month.”