Full Metal Jacket (1987)
While the Vietnam War has produced many great films from Oliver Stone’s Oscar-winning classic Platoon, Coppola’s nightmarish Apocalypse Now and the severely underrated Hamburger Hill (which I reviewed last time), many films that cover this war follow some fairly familiar beats. Namely that they feature a group of soldiers wandering, or sailing through a hot and steamy jungle that’s being blasted by napalm morning, noon and night.
So for something a little bit different and by different I mean brilliant, we go to legendary director Stanley Kubrick who chose the war as the subject of what would ultimately be his penultimate film, Full Metal Jacket, quite possibly one of the most thought-provoking and darkly funny films about the war ever made.
The film follows the trials and tribulations of the US Marine Pvt James “Joker” Davis during the Vietnam War, from his brutal training at the hands of an abusive drill sergeant, through to his experiences fighting in the war-torn streets of Hue during the Tet Offensive.
Of the film’s cast, there are two performances that I think are key to why I love the film so much, as it is the relationship between these two characters that really focus in no one of the film’s core ideas, the dehumanisation process that soldiers go through in order to be able to kill.
The first is the show-stealing performance of R. Lee Ermey as Sgt Hartman, the tyrannical drill instructor tasked with moulding the new recruits into cold-blooded killers to turn loose on the enemy.
Words are not enough to describe my love for Ermey’s performance; the guy is just amazing in how he drew upon his own real-life experiences as a drill sergeant to create such a memorable and hilarious character. I also admire the incredible energy and creativity that the man puts into his voice in the way that he can seemingly scream for hours without so much as a crack in his voice, and I adore his insults which are the stuff that dreams are made of, each new insult being as cruel, funny and insanely quotable as the last.
I just can’t hear Hartman roar “YOU’D BEST UNFUCK YOURSELF OR I WILL UNSCREW YOUR HEAD AND SHIT DOWN YOUR NEEEEEEECK!!!!!!!!” without collapsing into fits of laughter.
The second key performance is Vincent D’Onofrio’s incredible turn as Leonard Lawrence cruelly nicknamed by Hartman as “Pvt Pyle”, a bumbling overweight misfit who soon becomes the regular target of the drill sergeant’s insults. The manner in which D’Onofrio depicts the gradual breakdown of the out of his depth “Pyle” at the hands of Hartman’s torment is tragic, as we see him completely broken down from a clumsy misfit, before being rebuilt into a dead-eyed maniac loading a rifle in the training camp bathroom.
D’Onofrio’s physical transformation into the character is also noteworthy with the actor holding the record for the most weight gained by an actor for a role, packing on 70 pounds in weight to achieve the look that Kubrick was looking for.
Many critics have pointed out a kind of Frankenstein parallel when you look at the relationship between Hartman and “Pyle”. Hartman is the Dr Frankenstein in this scenario tasked with breaking the recruits down and then rebuilding them into killers, something that he succeeds in doing with Pyle. However, as is the case with many of these stories, Hartman learns the hard way that quite often the monster always turns against its creator, culminating in a powerful and tense standoff in the camp bathroom that leaves them both dead.
The first half of the film is often held up as the best part of the film, with it covering the main characters as they go through basic training. And in many regards it is certainly the stronger half, what with it featuring the excellent performances of Hartman and D’Onofrio, as well as much of what makes this film so iconic. However, it’s a bit unfair to say that the film completely falls apart when the action shifts to Vietnam, which, while not as good as the first half, is still a damn good film.
For starters I love the production design and the visuals, such as the soldiers moving into the battered city of Hue, which Kubrick had recreated by carefully destroying portions of the Beckton Gas site outside of London. It’s an incredible set as the men move through a truly hellish urban environment, trying to root out a sniper hidden within the belly of a building overlooking them.
I also adore the final shot of the men marching out of the city at night with the flaming buildings being the only source of light. It’s a truly phenomenal sight to behold, and the men singing the “Mickey Mouse” song adds a nice darkly comic edge to proceedings.
The second half, while lacking Hartman and his insults, still has plenty of darkly comic moments, with my personal favourite line being as the Colonel who, bemused by the wearing of peace symbols, bluntly and crudely states to Joker that “You’d better get your head and your ass wired together or I will take a giant shit on you”.
Fast paced, funny, dark, and headed by two powerhouse performances, including possibly one of the funniest ever committed to film, Full Metal Jacket is probably my favourite amongst Stanley Kubrick’s eclectic body of work and probably one of my favourite war films. If you’ve never seen any of Kubrick’s work before, I’d recommend starting with this one as it’s Kubrick at his most accessible and, in my view, at his best.
This is likely the last feature about war films that I’ll be writing for a while, but do feel free to leave more suggestions in the comments. I’m almost bound to take another trip back into battle to offer up some more examples of great war films that aren’t Saving Private Ryan. Although I think I’ll drop that part of the title from now on.
Graeme Robertson
Originally published May 28, 2017. Updated April 16, 2018.
