June
29: #17, Full Metal Jacket
Kubrick
explores the messy ambiguity of the Vietnam War.
Spoiler
alert: I've seen this movie a dozen times and I love it. I know
there's a sizable camp of folks out there who say that the basic
training part of the film is better than the rest and use that
criticism to knock the whole package, but I disagree. Even if it's
the best part of the movie, the entire thing is still great.
But
yes, the basic training part is fantastic. It's really the only war
film that really takes advantage of that important part of the
soldier's experience and puts it at center stage. In this case,
Kubrick turns up the heat by including the kind of psychological
torture that even former drill instructor R. Lee Ermey (who's amazing
in this, as you already know) says wouldn't have flown in the actual
Marines.
According
to star Matthew Modine, Kubrick even turned the actors on each other
to get a little more authenticity in their performances. Modine
admitted in an interview that he and Vincent D'Onofrio (superb as
Private Pyle) began to dislike each other during the shooting,
despite being real life friends beforehand. But to reduce this film
to just the basic training, which yeah, includes a lot of great lines
from Ermey and a classic descent into madness by D'Onofrio, does it a
disservice as a lot of the meat comes in the second act.
 |
| Don't feel bad, Pyle. I probably couldn't do this shit, either. |
It's
when we reach Vietnam that we fully explore the prevailing theme of
the movie, which Joker kindly spoon-feeds us later on when he
explains that his peace symbol pin and helmet inscription of “Born
to Kill” are intended to represent “the duality of man.”
Everywhere you look in this film, you see evidence of that duality.
Look
at the outward, rather blunt racism voiced by such characters as
Animal Mother, despite the obvious love he has for his black brothers
in arms. How about when Joker flips in an instant from discussing the
meltdown of Pyle to wanting to bang Cowboy's sister, without so much
as a change of tone?
Full
Metal Jacket
really explores the implications of sending very young men overseas
to fight our wars. These young men who have barely lived their own
lives are trained to be killers. We're meant to see early on that
Pyle is not fit for duty, but was Pyle really that much more fucked
up than the murderous gunner in the helicopter who brags about
killing civilian women and children or Animal Mother?
Unlike
in a lot of his other films, Kubrick isn't afraid to get a little
more visceral with his shots this time around. The low-angle handheld
cameras that follow the platoon as they advance forward late in the
movie or the point-of-view shots when Ermey screams at a soldier or
the soldiers eulogize their dead brothers are evidence of how
important it was to Kubrick that audiences feel like they're in the
platoon with these guys.
 |
| "Do you realize how many simple carbs are in this donut, Private Pyle? Do you know how much fat is in this donut? I AM TRYING TO HELP YOU EAT BELOW MAINTENANCE AND ADOPT A HEALTHY LIFESTYLE!" |
Just
as with A
Clockwork Orange or
The Shining,
this movie demands a lot from its star and without an excellent
performance from Matthew Modine, it just wouldn't have worked.
Fortunately, Modine and the large supporting cast were all up to the
task. Nobody seems like they're “playing soldier” and they wear
the enormity of the film's situations on their faces well.
It's
always been a cute thing to call Full
Metal Jacket two
movies, but in actuality it's more like three. There's basic
training, the deployment, and the final sequence, where everything
comes to fruition. The film simply wouldn't be as great as it is if
any of those parts were missing, no matter how entertaining and
rewatchable the opening act is.
Grade:
A
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