12/12/09 - Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket (1987, 116 min)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/

Nothing like following Elf up with the great Christmas classic of Full Metal Jacket. This was - not surprisingly - another film watched for my film class. I'd seen this Kubrick piece before (about two years ago) and remembered most of it but still needed to refresh my memory in order to write an essay on it.

Full Metal Jacket mainly follows Pvt. Joker (Matthew Modine) through three episodes. The first is basic training where we also meet Pvt. Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) and Gny. Sgt. Hartman (R. Lee Ermey). Next, we get to see Pvt. Joker as he's out there in Vietnam but before he has any combat duty. Playing a big role here is Rafterman (Kevyn Major Howard) and old friend (from basic training) Pvt. Cowboy (Arliss Howard). We then get to see Pvt. Joker in combat and here people such as Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) and Eightball (Dorian Harewood) play bigger roles.

It's hard to say acting is the forefront of Full Metal Jacket. The protagonist of the film - Pvt. Joker - really doesn't do much. Modine is fine when he's on screen, though, but it's not really anything so amazing to warrant much mention, and it's not terrible either. Just average. The movie is most remembered for D'Onofrio and Ermey's performances during basic training. They are without question the best acting jobs of the film. Ermey's acting is spot on and top-notch, but this is probably just because he's not even acting, but doing the job he was used to doing. But that's precisely why he's an excellent fit for the film. Moving into the second and third portions of the film we get a lot more characters. Pvt. Cowboy returns along with his squad. No one here stands out on the acting front except Animal Mother whose fierceness is well done and is used sometimes to make a point on the war itself. Overall, Animal Mother, for all the stupidity he appears to display, is probably my favorite of the group of marines from the second half of the movie.

The thing I hate about Full Metal Jacket is that it really seems to be three different stories. We first have the basic training portion which is what everyone knows and associates with the film. It's the most memorable, but I feel overall it's pretty weak. However, with Gny. Sgt. Hartman we have one of the most quotable figures in film history, so that is a plus. The next segment of the movie is about Pvt. Joker after training but before he's seen any combat duty. It's the shortest segment and probably the most pointless. I feel it's more of a transition into the next section which is the best in terms of making points on Vietnam. The third portion if when Pvt. Joker finally gets to display his merit as a soldier and everything comes together. Points on Vietnam and on war in general are made and everything works here. But I also get the feeling most people don't feel this way. Everyone seems to like the beginning due to how quotable and memorable it is, but in my opinion it is this section that really makes the movie. However, to sum everything up, Full Metal Jacket really seems like three portions (or two portions with a transition section in between) and the large jump from one to the other (character-wise, mainly) hurts the film.

In the first portion, we get voice overs done by Pvt. Joker but Pvt. Pyle really seems like the main character. It's hard to argue that the first part of the film is not just Pvt. Pyle versus Gny. Sgt. Hartman to see whose will is stronger. Pvt. Joker has an important role in this struggle (he's there at the climax to perhaps signify this), but his character isn't made prominent enough for us to really care for him as he becomes the main guy for the rest of the movie.

One thing Kubrick does in Full Metal Jacket that I really like is the frequent use of first person view. Many times we are looking directly into Gny. Sgt. Hartman or some other figure of terror such as the female sniper. It's obviously meant to put the viewer closer to the action and more "in the movie" and Kubrick really uses this to his advantage. Similarly, we get a great addition with the interviews of the soldiers. Though I think lots of war films do this, I don't know if many did it back in 1987. Regardless, Kubrick uses it to great effect. We don't see the questions the soldiers are asked, but just their responses. Perhaps surprisingly, I felt that Animal Mother's responses were the best and the most appropriate. I felt these portions fleshed out his character really well and added a great dimension there.

As for Animal Mother, I feel he is worthy of some more mention. It's interesting to see what the effects of the basic training have on the various marines. Obviously they all went through it so they are equal in that regard, but they all handle the situation differently. Sometimes Animal Mother says exactly what the audience is thinking (for instance in the interviews) and sometimes he does the illogical things (running to save the wasted marines from the sniper). But he handles himself perfectly in this situation, doing exactly the right thing. He figures everything out and is completely cool under this pressure. I'm torn as to what Kubrick is trying to say with this character. I mean, on one hand I can interpret it as Animal Mother has become one with killing - he has completely embraced exactly what basic training was meant to do. His helmet even says something along those lines. On the other hand, he frequently says the things that gave me the feel he hated everything that was Vietnam, perhaps more so than the other figures. Baldwin plays Animal Mother like a brute and a savage, dim-witted just like Pvt. Pyle. But Kubrick manages to make this character infinitely more complicated and interesting.

I will also say one small last thing on the film. The soundtrack is really bad. I don't usually associate Kubrick with great music selections - really nothing comes to mind in the other films of his with respect to excellent music picks - but nothing really works in Full Metal Jacket. I mean, yeah, the songs are good and all, but they just don't create the atmosphere like other great music scenes. I mean, I'm not trying to say that it should be on par with Scorsese or Tarantino in this regard, but I just never felt like any of the music picks were that good except the opening one while everyone is getting their hair cut. But most of the other music scenes were during transition scenes and they just didn't serve the appropriate purpose for me.

Overall, I gave this film a 7/10. Perhaps remarkably, it's the worst Kubrick film I've seen and it's still a 7/10 pushing 8/10. I just don't feel like Full Metal Jacket is cohesive enough to be a great movie. There's no real protagonist and the points made on marine training and marines in general don't seem that well fleshed out. They could've been a lot better. Perhaps I'm just holding Kubrick to higher standards when he's also the director of such amazing films as 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Shining, and Dr. Strangelove. Still, Full Metal Jacket is a very good film, just one that doesn't live up to what it could have been.