Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket

Director: Stanley Kubrick

Year: 1987

Starring: Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, Adam Baldwin and R. Lee Ermey

     Stanley Kubrick makes the list again with another war movie, this time set in the Vietnam war.  Full Metal Jacket was Kubrick's first film since The Shinning, leaving a gap of seven years. It became common for Kubrick to spend a lot of time on one film, and it pays off in this one.

     The film is presented in two parts. The first half of the film is the training at Parris Island where we meet the main character, who's nickname is Private Joker. We follow him through a rigorous training regime, and encounter other soldiers as well, most notably a character nicknamed Private Pyle who is played by the incredibly underrated Vincent D'Onofrio. 

     Pyle plays an important role in the first half of the film, as he takes most of the demeaning abuse from Drill Instructor Hartman, played by R. Lee Ermey in what is probably his greatest performance of his entire career. Through these two characters, Kubrick explores his recurring theme of dehumanization, something he used in his earlier war movie Paths of Glory. Pyle clearly can't accomplish as much as the other soldiers-in-training, and Hartman does nothing but harass him. His mental abuse gets so intense that he finally stops being a person, and completes the transformation by literally going insane. A violent confrontation between Hartman and Pyle concludes the first half of the film, and we are shipped off to Vietnam where we follow Private Joker, the only character to appear in both parts of the film (apart from Joker's friend Cowboy who we see later on). 

     The film has a dramatic shift in tone as it makes the transition. It's here Kubrick shows his genius as a filmmaker. The training portions of the film were emotionally and physically exhausting, intense and even dangerous at points. In Vietnam, where the war is taking place, it's more of a laid back, relaxed attitude. It's a brilliant juxtaposition that Kubrick uses to illustrate how the military itself is the dehumanizing factor, and not necessarily the war. 

     What makes this film stand out even more, is the urban settings it has in Vietnam. The majority of films set during this conflict are usually set in dense jungles. The combat is guerrilla-style, and it feels claustrophobic at times. Kubrick opted to place the combat scenes in a war-torn city which looks like the aftermath of an apocalypse. It's these scenes we are introduced to Adam Baldwin's character Animal Mother, who is one badass you wouldn't want to mess with. Baldwin would later play a toned down version of this character in Firefly years later. 

     Stanley Kubrick does it again and creates another masterpiece, one I would consider his best film, if not one of his best. It's another excellent film to add to the already large number made during the period, and it remains a classic, and it still holds up today.