What Makes "Full Metal Jacket" Great.

Throughout the late 70s and 80s, several films about the Vietnam War popped up with masterpieces like Apocalypse Now, The Dear Hunter, and Platoon. Yet Kubrick comes along and makes another Vietnam War Picture and does the incredible of not just standing out among them, but war films in general. Kubrick focuses less on the standard ani war message, but rather the psychological transition and development of recruits into killers, and as Joker puts it, "The Duality of Man".

The film is divided into two parts that follow a group of Marines from their time as recruits at the brutal boot camp under the watch of the ruthless Drill Intrunster Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey), to their time in Vietnam and involvement in the 1968 TET Offensive. The center of the story is Private/Sergent Joker (Mathew Modine) who tries to keep a sense of identity and individuality despite the violence and chaos around him.

The first half of this film has been esspisally praised by many people, particularly by those who have served in the marine corp and that is well deserved. A good amount of that praise is pointed at R. Lee Ermey's terrifying and at times hilarious portrayal of Hartman. Ermey's experience as a former Drill Instructor during the Vietnam War allowed him to create a very real picture of Marine Corp Boot Camp. Many of his lines of rants and insults were improvised on the spot coming from his experience with real-life recruits and it makes the Boot Camp sequences all the more effective. He pushes them physically and mentally all while adding to the stress by constantly yelling and demeaning them. Their training is meant to destroy their sense of individualism and make them one big killing machine. This death of the individual is emphasized in the first 10 minutes of the film with the recruits having their hair shaved off and the nicknames that Hartman gives each of them, names that stick with them throughout the movie, in fact, throughout the film all of the characters are referred to only by their Marine given names, and we learn the real names of almost none of them. The main target of Hartman's abuse becomes the overweight and incompetent Private Gomer Pyle (Vincent D'Onfrio). Pyle's constant screw-ups put him on the top off Hartman's and the rest of the recruit's hit list. Joker tries to help Pyle through a more patient and understated method, and at first, this works but ultimately another stupid mistake puts him back at square one. The thing that Hartman admires the most is the art of killing, so much so that he gives a speech praising people like Lee Harvey Oswald and Charles Whitman. Pyle after weeks of abuse adopts this killer mindset and becomes a much better recruit because of it, he shines especially in marksmanship, a talent that Hartman himself praises Pyle for. This comes at the cost of Pyle's sanity however leading to the disturbing finale of the first halve.

The film however is ultimately Joker's story, and Joker makes for an effective protagonist, as well as the center of the themes throughout the film. Joker's struggle is with that of keeping a sense of himself and not letting himself become just another cog in the system. He primarily does this through jokes, practically a stereotypical John Wayne impression, but it goes deeper than that. The first notable example is when Hartman asks Joker if he believes in the Virgin Mary and Joker says no despite Hartman's constant abuse in making him change his mind. Joker is at first rewarded for this defiance as Hartman sees it as "Guts" and makes Joker Squad Leader. This is seen again at the end of Boot Camp when the newly titled Marines are given their MOS, while most are assigned to Infantry Joker assigned to Military Journalism, a fact that earns him a rant from Hartman claiming "Your not a writer you're a killer". Joker counties to walk this line in the second half of the film, which is physically shown in his metaphorical attire with a peace symbol on his uniform and a helmet that says "Born to Kill". This hypocrisy is brought to the attention of a Marine Colonel who berates him for it and bluntly tells him to get with the program. This does not go unnoticed by his fellow Marines either, who criticize him for his lack of combat experience, as evidence by he's lack of the "Thousand Yard Stare". Joker is also disturbed and sickened by a fellow Marine's willingness and enjoyment of killing women and children. This attempt to diverge from this mindset that the marines install in him is ultimately futile. In part 1, he is powerless to stop Pyle's detreating mental state, as Pyle kills Hartman and himself with Joker only being able to watch in horror. In part 2 when trying to take down the enemy sniper in the building Joker hesitates to kill the young sniper, a hesitation that Hartman warned Joker in Bootcamp would get him killed, and that nearly happens. In the end, the young sniper is incapacitated by he's fellow Marines, and Joker is forced to pull the trigger to put down the sniper who is just a kid, an effective call back to the earlier scene where Joker berated a fellow Marine for killing children. It is after this that Joker acquires the "Thousand Yard Stare" mentioned earlier in the film. Joker's individualism and innocence are gone forever, and the Marines singing the Mickey Mouse song emphasize this loss of innocence. Only Kubrick would have the balls to end a film like that.

Kubrick's previous films such as Dr. Strangelove and A Clockwork Orange show that he is no stranger to dark humor, and it shows here as well. One of my favorite scenes in the film is the series of awkward interviews that the Marines give. "They don't have one horse in Vietnam, there's something basically wrong with that". "I wanted to be the first get on my block to get a confirmed kill". that last one esspisally is priceless. Even the one-off characters who are only in the film for a scene are two get some great reactions. From the close-minded colonel (Bruce Boa) that Joker encounters, the sociopathic helicopter gunner (Tim Colceri), and of course the trigger happy Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin)

Kubrick has crafted a powerful Vietnam war saga that showcases the battle between one's mindset and the mindset that is installed through war, and how that battle leads to results just as gruesome as the actual combat.