As the fourth Vietnam War movie that I have screened in the last year, I have to admit that I approached “Full Metal Jacket” with a bit of burnout. In an effort to sort through the mess that this war was, these films (“Apocalypse Now”, “Platoon”, and “The Deer Hunter”) all seem to end in the same disarray and disillusion that the war did. This makes for great art but is necessarily unentertaining. And while “Full Metal Jacket” feels like more of the same, it does so with a compelling cast of characters that kept me invested to the end.
The first act of “Full Metal Jacket” takes place entirely at boot camp in America and stands alone as a brilliant, 45-minute short story. Depicting the transformation that takes place in the psyche of young men at bootcamp, the recruits shed their Rockwellian innocence and are reprogramed (or deprogramed) to be killers. This is hardest on Private “Gomer Pyle”, who suffers a mental breakdown after weeks of abuse. Everything about this act is fascinating, from Kubrick’s methodical pacing, to R. Lee Ermey’s fiendish Drill Sergeant Hartman, to Vincent D’Onofrio’s evolution as Private Pyle.
The film then jumps to Vietnam where Matthew Modine’s “Private Joker” is a war correspondent for the “Stars and Stripes”, the American military newspaper. He mostly produces fluff pieces until the Tet Offensive begins and he is deployed to the Battle of Hue. For many, this seems to be where the film wanes and, while I agree, it does so no more than any of the other film’s I’ve mentioned. Where “Platoon” oversold a metaphor on good and evil in man, this film pokes fun at that duality—and yet still concludes in a way that lives with both truths, thoughtfully and meaningfully.
While I stopped short of loving this film, I certain liked it. I thought the imagery was beautiful and the performances were spot on. Douglas Milsome’s cinematography embedded the viewer in the mens’ experience and yet remained somehow distant and watchful. R. Lee Ermey was fantastic and this was probably my favorite of Vincent D’Onofrio's performances, which teetered between venerable and crazy. Finally, I loved that the story was told from the perspective of a military war correspondent. Considering many believe that Vietnam was lost, not on the battlefield, but in the living rooms of Americans watching the war on TV—to link the audience up with someone intended to draft military propaganda was brilliant. If I had to pick a Vietnam War film (that isn’t “Forrest Gump”…lol), I’d go with this one.