’’Full Metal Jacket’’ is a movie by Stanley Kubrick. It is based on the novel ’’The Short Timers’’ by Gustav Hasford and the screenplay for the movie is written by Stanley Kubrick.
The movie tells the tale of a group of Marine recruits following their lives from the time they are training in boot camp to the time they are actually sent into combat in Vietnam. The way training camp changes them and how these changes are reflected in their behavior later on is shown in the movie.
Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Ermey, Peter Edmund among others star in this movie which was made in 1987 along the lines of the more famous Vietnam movies like ’’Apocalypse Now’’ and ’’Platoon’’
The movie begins with a group of recruits, no more than teenagers who are drafted in to the Marines and are sent for training on Paris Island. The drill sergeant is Sgt. Hartman (Ermey) who’s a no-nonsense disciplinarian. He regards the raw recruits as low-lives who need to be forged into fighting men by fire. Accordingly he gives them nicknames which he believes pushes the right buttons (like giving a black guy the nickname of ’’Snowball’’).
Hartman lets those swear words loose from his cannon of a mouth always having a sexual synonym for every weapon or battlefield tactic. He also makes them sleep with their rifles, chanting a love song to their rifles. It makes for a colorful first half, where he always pulls up a chubby Pvt. Pyle (D’Onofrio) because he(Pyle) keeps screwing things up. Pvt. Pyle finds out that his specialty is marksmanship.
During sniper training Hartman proudly relates a story about presidential assassins being former marines. This is a scene which is not to be missed and is one of the important scenes in the movie. It shows the loathing the sergeant has for politicians.
Pvt. Pyle becomes obsessed with his weapon and also gives it the name of a girl. He is with it day and night, knowing how to disassemble it and put it back together, blind-folded. On the night before graduation day there is a final confrontation between Pyle and Hartman, because by that time Pyle is a maniacal killer only waiting to be unleashed.
The second half of the movie is not as interesting as the first half and it slows down considerably. Pvt. Joker takes a position with the Press Corps, covering the Tet offensive for the Stars and Stripes. He listens to how the press corps can become covert operatives by disseminating propaganda to enemy troops which are aimed at demoralizing them. He is inducted brutally into the tactics of the intelligence agencies.
The second half seems to have great scenes which appear to have no co-relation to each other. It is almost like the whole battle and the reactions of the soldiers have been pre-programmed, without any spontaneity that is on show in ’’Platoon’’ or ’’The Killing Fields’’.
This is where the movie loses focus and becomes like something which Kubrick started very enthusiastically but is indifferent to the ending. A marked departure from his other films where he keeps imposing the central theme of the movie on the audience from beginning to end.
The movie’s ending is supposed to give us a great deal to think about the Vietnam war and the effects it had on people. But the movie is preaching to a choir, because the earlier movies about the Vietnam war come to the same conclusions or ask the same questions.
The film ends with a rendition of ’’Paint it black’’ by the Rolling Stones , which I think says more by its lyrics than the entire second half did.
Lee Ermey is very convincing in his role as Sgt. Hartman and he’s as menacing as can be. Matthew Modine as the cynical Marine with a dry humor is good and Vincent D’Onofrio plays the tubby loser Pvt. Gomer Pyle to perfection. Even his maniacal look seems genuine. The soundtrack is good with songs like ’’Hello Vietnam’’ (Tom T. Hall) and ’’Chapel of Love’’ (Jeff Barry).