Full Metal Jacket

Yesterday I went to bed around 4 am. The reason why? Well, RTP1 went heavy on their listing! While I was zapping for something nice, trying to avoid one of those shows to which you call to and then guess a word to win some money, Full Metal Jacket popped out. I almost had forgotten how good this movie is, but to be honest, after watching it for the second time, I do think that the movie promises a bit more than it can deliver.

Directed in 1987 by Stanley Kubrick, Full Metal Jacket is probably the best war movie about Vietnam up until today. The way I see it, we have two distinct parts in this movie. In the first half we are offered the chance to see the training of the Marines Corp. of the United States, being this part of movie the great responsible for the success of this title. Both R. Lee Ermey (the recruit’s instructor) and Vincent D’Onofrio (one of the recruits) give an awesome contribute to this movie, which eventually turns out to be a problem, as these two characters leave the screen at an early stage. The dehumanization brought by the training and the alienation of the human mind are brilliantly explored by Kubrick in this part of the movie, and so you can expect some of those close-up shots à la Kubrick recalling “The Clockwork Orange” and Jack Nicholson on “The Shinning” with the characters staring at the camera with that mad expression on their faces. By itself, this first half of Full Metal Jacket is the pure form of excellence.

In the second part of the movie the training ends and all the recruits achieve their goal of going to Vietnam. The previously mentioned characters leave the scene and the action is focused on another recruit – “Joker”, which is also well interpreted by Matthew Modine. It seems to me that this second half of the movie is the way Kubrick has found to give his own view on the way things were made in the Vietnam War. The message conveyed is that soldiers didn’t even know what they were fighting for, and there wasn’t the need of explaining the meaning of this war to anyone. We get insights on the way these marines lived back then in Vietnam, and also some good cinematic moments of the war itself. Not that this is a major threat to the quality of the movie, but I think that there are several moments that were not necessary to convey the message of anti-war that Kubrick probably had on his mind. Also, the terrific ways of portraying the dehumanization and the clever and horrific humor of the first half of the movie kind of cease to exist, decreasing the fun of watching it.

Don’t get deceived by this opinion on the second half of the movie. The overall result is really good, but not as good as the first half promises. Still, another must-see that I would recommend to everyone!