Right well this is actually a rather special post as it is the 100th of this blog, so I thought I would mark it with another movie review so I've gone back to the 1980s and decided to review Stanley Kubrick's penultimate film, Full Metal Jacket, which is set around the events of the Vietnam war. And with that let's have a look at the flick......
The film is set in 1967 during the Vietnam war and it begins with a group new recruits who are sent to Parris Island where they are trained by the hard ass and foul mouthed senior drill instructor Sgt Hartman (Lee Ermey). Hartman uses tough tactics on the recruits, which include the cocky Private Joker (Matthew Modine), the inept and overweight Private Pyle (Vincent D'Onofrio) (these are nicknames given by Hartman). Pyle's bumbling and clumsy nature and frequently below par performance in his training gets him regularly into trouble with Hartman who pushes him hard. And after a while Hartman decides to have Pyle paired with Joker to help him improve in his training, which for a while improves. However Pyle is found out by Hartman to have stolen a jelly doughnut from the mess hall which he hid in his footlocker (which was found to be unlocked on inspection by Hartman). Hartman then decides as a result of Pyle's failure that every time he screws up, he will punish the rest of the recruits instead, and this indeed carries on as Pyle's continues to make mistakes. One night the rest of the recruits attack Pyle by pinning him down in his bed and hitting him with bars of soap. By now Pyle is left feeling totally isolated and alone and from here he starts to show signs of mental breakdown.
Pyle however on the plus side starts to finally impress Hartman with his rifleman skills and it is not long after this that Pyle disciplines himself into becoming a textbook marine, but at this time Pyle also starts to show signs of cracking up as he talks to his rifle. On completion of their training the marines are given their military occupational assignments, with Pyle and many of the other recruits being given infantry in the field, and Joker basic military journalism. On the final night on the island Joker on nightwatch finds Pyle in the toilets, holding his rifle, clearly now having suffered a mental breakdown, Pyle starts to quote the rifleman's creed, this noise of which awakens Hartman. Hartman storms into the latrine and demands that Pyle put down his weapon, but Pyle instead kills Hartman and then he turns the rifle on himself, leaving Joker stunned. After this the film jumps to the following year 1968 where Joker is now a journalist in the war for Stars and Stripes. And from here Joker is sent to Phu Bai where he soon meets up with one of his fellow recruits Prviate Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and his squad of men, which includes the cynical machine gunner, Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin). And from here things get tough as Joker becomes more involved in the war as a soldier where he has to fight like the others to survive in Vietnam....
Full metal jacket is no doubt one of the most memorable war films in recent years, and while you could argue that the main showpiece of the film is its first 45 minutes during the boot camp sequences, it still remains one of Stanley Kubrick's most powerful films. Kubrick's look at the war in a way is similar to Apocalypse now in that it isn't told in a strictly literal fashion as depicted in Oliver Stone's Platoon, where it get's down to the nitty gritty of the sights, sounds, noises, the dirt, the bugs and the blood, it is more about examining the attitudes of the war from the point of view from the soldiers in the field, rather than fighting to survive. Kubrick wanted to make a film about the Vietnam war for several years and it took some persuasion for him to work with his close friend Michael Herr, who was a former war correspondent, with whom he co-wrote the screenplay along with Gustav Hasford. Production wise of course with Kubrick's fear of flying the film once again was filmed entirely in England and at locations such as the Norfolk Broads, and a former RAF and British army based, Bassingbourn barracks, the Cliffe marshes (used for the open country scenes) as well as at disused gas works in London. And given that it was supposed to be set in Vietnam, Kubrick went as far as to even import palm trees from Spain! And its this attention to detail that actually makes you believe or at least accept that the film does look and is set in Vietnam.
Getting onto the performances they are pretty much top notch here, with Matthew Modine arguably giving one of his best performances as the cocky Private Joker, which Modine shows in a way as being about the only character in the film with a sense of humanity, as he is surrounded by marine killing machines. And in the Parris island scenes you see that he is the only one that shows any kind of empathy towards Private Pyle and his inability to perform well in his training as well as his dismay at Pyle's eventual breakdown. Modine does of course have plenty of good lines in the film, one of which is where he faces off against one of Vietnam soldiers, Animal mother (played by Adam Baldwin) who asks him what he does and Joker tells him he is a combat correspondent, and Animal mother sarcastically asks "have you ever seen any combat?" and Joker replies "well I've seen a little on TV!". Also when he is in a meeting with the Stars and Stripes jouranlist team, his boss tells them that the film actress Ann Margaret,was due to arrive the week before, but as Tet Offensive happens and vietcong overrun the area with suicide bombers, Joker quips "so does this mean that Ann Margaret is not coming????".
Vincent D'Onofrio is terrific in his tragic role as the hapless Private Pyle, an overweight recruit who is unable to do things right by himself until later on when he is pushed to breaking point by Hartman. D'Onofrio has several highlights in the film particularly the scene where he first speaks to Hartman and he tries not to laugh at Hartman's gruff yet amusingly profane manner. Also the scene where he messes up on a task during training and he is made to drop his trousers and stick his thumb in his mouth and march with his rifle. And there is his final scene in the latrine where he is confronted by Hartman while dementedly quoting the Rifleman's creed, and he has the look of Jack Nicholson in The Shining with that evil mad glint in his eyes. And in the end Pyle is really the only sympathetic character in the film as he is subjected Hartman ruthless training methods which causes him to ultimately snap.
Which brings me onto Lee Ermey as Sgt Hartman, who delivers the best performance in the film as the ruthless drill sergeant, and he plays Hartman straight down the line as a hard assed marine, who frequently spouts out profanity at his recruits in order to push them as far they can go. When Kubrick hired Ermey, who was a real life drill instructor in the US marine corps, he asked that he wanted it to be real, and Ermey said "Stanely, I wouldn't give it to you any other way." Ermey has so many priceless lines of dialogue that there are too many to mention all at once, but a few favourites that come to mind include when he first meets Pyle he asks him "Do your parents have any children that lived? I bet they regret that! You are so ugly you could be a modern art masterpiece!". Another one is when Pyle feebly tries to climb the training course obsctacle wall and he is feared to climb over it which disgusts Hartman who already has said "you climb obstacles like old people fuck, do you know that???!" and then he angrily says "Are you quitting on me???? Then QUIT you slimey walrus fuckin piece of shit! Get the fuck off my obstacle! Get the fuck down off my obstacle, now move it! I'm gonna rip your balls off so you cannot contaminate the rest of the world! I will motivate you private, even if it short dicks every cannibal on the congo!". Another favourite line is when he speaks to Private cowboy for the first time who tells him he's from Texas "holy dog shit, only steers and queers come from Teaxs, private cowboy, and you don't look much like a steer to me so that kind of narrows it down! Do you suck dicks? Are you a peter puffer?? I bet you would be the kind of goddam person that would fuck a person in the ass and not even give them the courtesy of a reach around! I'll be watching you!". Also the scene where Hartman has the recruits parade around their bunks holding their rifles and grabbing their crotches in turn singing "this is my rifle, this is my gun! This is for fighting, this is for fun!" is both funny and memorable. I also like the scenes where he runs with his recruits on the barrack grounds and they sign along with him such as lines as "I don't know what I've been told! Eskimo pussy is mighty cold! Ho Chi Mhin is a son of a bitch! Got the blue ball crabs and the seven year itch!".
As for the other performances in the film Arliss Howard is excellent as Private cowboy, who you don't actually engage much with until he appears later in the film in Vietnam, and he becomes a more humanised character as he leads a squad of men who come to respect him, before (PLOT SPOILER) he is soon killed by a sniper. And Howard's performance actually elicits some emotion from the audience especially as he can be identified as the everyman in the film (if you can forgive the cliche!) and the scene where he is killed is one of the film's more powerful moments where Joker cradles him in his arms as he dies. Howard has an amusing moment when he is filmed by a camera crew and he says "There is something wrong with this country, as I cannot find one goddamn horse in it!". Adam Baldwin is also really good as Animal mother, the no nonsense cynical soldier whom bears a grudge against Joker when he meets him and he says "you talk the talk, do you walk the walk?!" but later on when he sees his men get picked off by a sniper, he does what he can to keep his men safe by trying to locate and take out the sniper. Animal mother also amusingly points in his interview on camera to a film crew that he thinks "well if you ask me, I think we are shooting the wrong gooks!" as his perspective on the lack of appreciation from the Vietnamese people and their efforts to help them in the war.
Kubrick once again here makes a technically brilliant film and he uses his typical camera set ups of slow pans, and symmetrical patterned shots, and makes good use of slow mo in some of the film's later scenes, especially during the attack on Cowboy's squad by a VC sniper. And he makes great use of the film locations in England for the various scenes in the film, even if you can see during the Parris island scenes that there are English give way road signs! The soundtrack for the film is also excellent as it features some original atmospheric moody pieces by Abigail Mead. It also features some tracks of the period which are used really well such as Johnnie Wrigt's "Hello Vietnam" which is used right at the beginning where we see the recruits get their hair shaved off. Also Nancy Sinatra's "These boots are made for walkin" where we see the Vietnamese hooker tempt Joker and his journal photographer friend Rafterman with the famous line "me so horny, me so horny!". Then there is of course the catchy "Surfin bird" by The Trashman, which is just brilliant and was later again popularised by Family Guy, and finally The Rolling Stones "Paint it black" is aptly used at the end credits.
Getting onto the film's flaws well if you want to be critical then you could argue of course that the film takes a dip after the Parris Island sequence is over and Lee Ermey's killed off, and from then on it isn't quite the same, but really I think it has to be viewed as a film of two halves, and they are both good in different ways. But having said that there is no doubt that the film's Parris island sequences are the real highlights of the film and the rest of the film does struggle to live up to that.
Well that's it for my look at Full Metal Jacket, which is an excellent war film and if you haven't seen it yet, then give it a go.
And with that on my 100th post I shall leave you there, and say here's to the next 100. :-)
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