As you can tell, I'm not going to be doing this series in any particular order. I only wanted to watch the first forty minutes of this movie (I have watched it quite recently), because they were my favorite of the film, but I decided to keep going, once again engrossed into the characters, the photography, and the story the film told, only to come out with a much higher understanding than when I first watched it.

I haven't seen many other films about the Vietnam War (unless you count the scenes from Forrest Gump), but either way, whether it be fictitious or based on real-life account, this is a war movie in full Kubrickian form.

The first fourty minutes of the film chronicle the days of recruits Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and Private Leonard "Gomer Pyle" Lawrence (Vincent D'Onofrio) under the strict and relentless command of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) as they train to become Marines to fight in the Vietnam War. These scenes are chocked full of Kubrick's trademark dark humor as Hartman berates his recruits with extremely angry (and fully improvised) tirades.

Receiving the brunt of Hartman's fury is the underachieving Pyle, whose mental ineptitude and physical shortcomings also become a bane on his fellow comrades. Clearly, Pyle is supposed to represent the everyman of society, those that would have no reason to fight, and because of their physical nature, probably wouldn't. We can closer identify with Pyle because he's more like the audience, and it really puts you front row and center in the experience that was the brutality of the Marine Corps.

Over the course of the film, through both severe mental and physical abuse, Pyle goes mad and his insanity causes him to end the lives of both Hartman and himself in one of the more striking scenes of the film, both in its cinematography and its stark violence, as well as being left with the unnerving feeling that that's where we'd end up if in Pyle's shoes.

Joker, while claiming to be a killer in the film's opening scene, also represents a more human side to the mass of cold-blooded killers that the Marines trained them to be. Wearing a peace button on his uniform while having "Born to Kill" drawn onto his helmet, he expresses one of the few characters of the film who's abhorred by the sadistic nature of the Marines while still wanting to serve his country, as shown when he grants a mercy kill to a wounded Vietnamese soldier who killed one of the friends he made in the platoon.

However, despite his intentions, he and the audience realize that he has gained the "thousand-yard stare;" he will never truly be the same person he was after that kill, even though it's something he claimed he was born to do.

As with many of Kubrick's films, one of the main themes of the film is that of dehumanization, and in this film, it's through the use of conformity. If the shaving of the recruits' hair in the very first part of the movie wasn't any indicator, it's the tutelage of Hartman that drives the point home.

It's Hartman who punishes Pyle for "being different" after he places his rifle on the wrong shoulder. Other punishments include wearing his cap backwards and being made to suck his thumb, and in one particularly haunting scene, is beaten by his fellow comrades when his actions get them in trouble. It's through Pyle's difference from the other recruits that led to his ill treatment that led to his homicidal and suicidal madness.

By film's end, after Joker and several other Marines survive a sniper's attack, they rejoin the other soldiers while singing the Mickey Mouse Club theme song altogether, which not only shows their equal mindset, but how they've all now embraced their status and cold-blooded killers.

Dark, bleak, and wryly ironic, Full Metal Jacket shows Kubrick doing what he does best: mocking war and the sheer senselessness of it. Showing both the darkest and lightest sides of humanity, he expertly snuffs the light as a means of showing us how less human we become by jointly subscribing to a twisted and arguably evil mindset that's supported by the country they served.
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I've never been the best at closing out reviews, but if there's anything you wish to add, expound upon, or ask, feel free to do so in the comments section.

2470639 Well, I don't feel the film is anti-American, as much as it is anti-conformity/war, which is a running theme in his work (A Clockwork Orange and Barry Lyndon for example...)

But this was a very good review, and I can't wait for your next review in the series.

2470639 This was a well thought-out, and well written review.

I remember when this movie was first aired on HBO many years ago. Being a young teen, it was one of those ones that the "Nanny State" rating system would have blown a gasket knowing I was watching it. (My mother didn't care if I watched it, heck, her and I spent the whole movie, "The Terminator" counting how many cops Arnie killed)

This movie might have had some influence in me joining the Marine Corps. Although by 1991, when I left home for Parris Island, the rules had gotten stricter when it came to what a D.I. was allowed and not allowed to do to the recruits, or privates, if you was 2nd Bn., they were still pretty much like Gunny Hartman in the movie in a lot of respects.

Bootcamp was definitely Hell, and one thing I should mention. In the movie, you only saw one Drill Instructor. In reality, there will be three, sometimes even four D.I.'s, and ALL of them will rain fire and brimstone down on your balls if you fuck up. And they did beat on us too. I still have the scar on my upper lip from being smacked across the face by my own M-16E2 service rifle.

All in all, I would say the first half of Full Metal Jacket was a fairly accurate representation of Marine Corps Bootcamp. Granted, we did not have one of our privates try to kill a D.I., (I was 2nd Bn) but we did hold the Island record for most suicide attempts in one day. (three in 20 minutes time)

Now, on to after Bootcamp.

Since The Vietnam war was just ending when I crawled out of my mother, I cannot really comment on what that war was like. I will say that the combat scenes did feel real to me when I first saw the film, though looking back now, I know just how artificial they were. The commradery displayed among the Marines, as well as the rivalries, were well portrayed.

yeah... done with this review. It's half passed midnight just about, and I feel wiped out tonight.

2470639
I have a couple grievances to air concerning this review actually. first and foremost being

Receiving the brunt of Hartman's fury is the underachieving Pyle, whose mental ineptitude and physical shortcomings also become a bane on his fellow comrades. Clearly, Pyle is supposed to represent the everyman of society, those that would have no reason to fight, and because of their physical nature, probably wouldn't. We can closer identify with Pyle because he's more like the audience, and it really puts you front row and center in the experience that was the brutality of the Marine Corps.

.
Gomer Pyle is supposed to represent the everyman of society? I have seen a lot of people in my time, and I can't say that i've meet too many who were as inept as Gomer Pyle in this movie. Gomer Pyle is not a everyman, he is exceptional, bot in reality and in the movies terms (exceptionally bad at soldiering). you could say that he is a symbol of childlike innocence crushed by the military, or a walking talking billboard for why the draft may not be such a great idea, but to call him a everyman? I think that's a bit much.
Next greivance

It's Hartman who punishes Pyle for "being different" after he places his rifle on the wrong shoulder... It's through Pyle's difference from the other recruits that led to his ill treatment that led to his homicidal and suicidal madness.

perhaps this is the end result, but I doubt that Hartman looked over and saw gomer pyle with his M-14 over the wrong shoulder and thought "he's being different, I must punish him." Pyle is punished for being wrong, or unable to complete physical activities. does it make him different, yes. Do they punish him with the express thought of punishment for being different? No.

As for me, "Full Metal Jacket" is a mixed bag; Some parts of it are brilliant, and some are not. the first 40 minutes are the ones that most people remember and for good reason, and funnily enough when they get to Vietnam the movie begins to show some wear and tear. At one point Private Joker meets a colonel, and this dude is a really bad actor, combined with some really on the nose dialogue it threw me out of the movie. the same thing happened whenever we meet 'get some guy' (who would later go on to appear in James Cameron's Avatar). it made me pause, and say, "well, war is hell and all, but do people like this really exist?" Maybe they do, but I'd like to think not.

As always with a Kubrick film its shot like how a robot would shoot movies, perfectly and soullessly, and I mean tat in the best way possible. As always the cinematography is just excellent.
Is it his best? No. Is it good, yes.

2472268 What I meant by Pyle being the everyman is that he most closely represents the average person who would watch that film; people who aren't physically fit or even mentally fit for such an environment, someone that they themselves can easily feel through to experience the awful conditions the privates went through to become the killers that they did.

As for the "being different" thing, Hartman explicitly yells at Pyle, "You want to be different!" Of course, he's not punishing him solely for "being different," but in this film's theme of dehumanization through conformity, it speaks volumes.