Full Metal Jacket is the second to last of Stanley Kubrick’s acclaimed filmography, like almost all his movies an adaptation of a novel: The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. According to a co-worker at the online bookseller at which I am employed, The Short-Timers is not the most well-written book and never got much reprinting. However, Hasford was knowledgeable about his subject, being a combat correspondent in the Marine Corps during Vietnam. In fact his novel is a semi-autobiography, as the lead protagonist in it and the movie is James “Joker” Davis (Matthew Modine), a Marine who works with the Corps’ journalist branch.
If
there is one important theme in the movie, it’s that the military can have a
dehumanizing effect on its members. It has thus been cited by many as one of
the greatest anti-war films ever made. Despite this, Kubrick insisted that his
movie was neither anti-war nor pro-war. It’s just war the way it is. However, I
think it’s hard to believe this isn’t an anti-war movie when there’s literally
a maniacal chopper gunner who just casually guns down Vietnamese farmers while
helping transport Joker and his fellow correspondent to the front line.
That being said, Kubrick divides his movie into two, though not completely even parts. The first forty-five minutes or so focuses on the training of the recruit Marine at the real life training center on Parris Island, South Carolina, while the rest of the two-hour runtime takes place in Vietnam in 1968. The main protagonist, Joker, has his morality and humanity challenged throughout, leading to a grim choice at the end.
The
Parris Island section (said by veterans to be the more accurate part) begins
with the Marines having all of their hair, and thus their civilian identities,
shaved away. They are then taught to become a well-oiled killing machine.
Though boot camp is hard and taxing, most of the recruits manage to get through
it, the exception being the overweight and slow-witted Private Leonard Lawrence
(played by Vincent D’Onofrio and better known in popular culture by his
derogatory nickname Gomer Pyle). Thus he, more than all the others, suffers the
wrath and abuse of one of cinema’s most iconic character: Gunnery Sergeant Hartman.
Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) punishes the recruits after finding a donut in a footlocker.
Originally
Tom Colceri was to play Hartman, but then Kubrick witnessed technical advisor
R. Lee Ermey, himself a former Marine drill instructor. To give an example to
Colceri, Ermey recorded himself delivering a harsh, profanity-laden tirade.
Kubrick was so impressed that Ermey got the role instead. Shockingly for a
Kubrick film, where the perfectionist director was known for shutting down any
improvisations or outside ideals, Ermey was allowed to improvise on set and
change the core of who the character is.
In
Hasford’s novel Hartman is simply a sadist who enjoys tormenting his recruits.
Ermey came up with the more interesting idea that Hartman is genuinely trying
to do his job, but is horrible inept at it. Using his real experience, Hartman
knew all the do’s and don’ts of a drill instructor. He gets the humor right.
Real life instructors try to test their recruits’ abilities to keep a straight
face while hearing all sorts of absurd claims and insults. However, Hartman’s
idea of toughening them up goes a step too far, with occasional instances of
physical punishment that are actually forbidden in the Corps.
One bit from the second section that has seeped into common cultural memory is the hooker's (Papillon Soo Soo) quote "Me so horny. Me make love long time." Unfortunately, it became popular to throw this line at Asian women in passing. This scene also sets up that Joker (Matthew Modine in the center) has not spent much time in the grit of the war yet.
Also,
he’s supposed to weed out men who would be unfit for the service. When Leonard keeps
fumbling every obstacle course and exercise, Hartman should cut him from the
Marine Corps to both prevent a liability in the field and save Leonard from a
bad fate. Instead he just goes harder and harder on the poor guy, to the point
that Leonard starts to crack. After the other recruits start to bully him
because Hartman uses collective punishment on them for his mistakes, Leonard
starts to improve, but shows signs of a dark mental turn. Instead of
recognizing that his recruit is turning into a dehumanized psycho, Hartman
thinks he’s becoming an awesome marine and starts to congratulate him. On a
final note, senior drill instructors actually fulfill more of a stern father
role, with the instructors under him performing most of the screaming, constant
inspections, and punishments. This is so the recruits have somebody less
aggressive they can go to. Hartman definitely does not fulfill this role,
meaning that his recruits only have a constant, unsympathetic hardass to deal
with.
Ironically,
because of some funny quotes and Ermey’s later roles, Hartman has been turned
into a memetic badass. Ermey has been miffed by this, seeing that many viewers
have clearly missed the point of his character and don’t realize that the
Parris Island section contains its own horrors alongside the action in Vietnam.
Still, it’s cool that Ermey used this role to launch a healthy film and
television career mostly playing military types with shades of Hartman. I
remember one show on the History Channel called Mail Call where he would answer military questions from viewers with
lots of shouting.
"Gomer Pyle" (Vincent D'Onofrio) completes his horrible
transformation by bringing a loaded weapon to the bathroom.
Back
to the movie, many who have never seen it might be surprised that there’s more
to it than Parris Island. This reflects the one major flaw in what is still a
really good film. The boot camp is so iconic because of Ermey and D’Onofrio’s
characters, that the narrative loses something once we’re past them. One thing
you don’t want in your movie is the middle and last acts to pale in comparison
to the opening.
Joker
has been serving as a Marine correspondent, but still hasn’t really gotten the
front-line action he thinks he needs. After experiencing a small part of the
Tet Offensive, he gets attached to Lusthog Squad, a platoon which includes
“Cowboy” Evans (Arliss Howard), a friend from Parris Island. Throughout the
rest of the film we get battles scenes interspersed with interviews and moments
with the various members of Lusthog Squad. The one that stood out to me was a
young Adam Baldwin as Sergeant “Animal Mother”, a war-loving man who’s not all
there, yet is a good and devoted member of his team, a mixture of the negative
and positive traits displayed by soldiers.
"Animal Mother" (Adam Baldwin) has a bit of a gung-ho personality.
Instead
of the jungle, of Platoon, the
Marines in Full Metal Jacket fight in
the streets of Hue, Vietnam during the Tet Offensive. At the end of January
1968, the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong launched a massive, broad assault
on South Vietnam with the intention of knocking out all the major military
centers and bases. This was the bloodiest section of the war, with nearly
200,000 military casualties and thousands of civilians killed (sometimes
executed) and displaced as their towns and cities became battlegrounds. The
Offensive was a failure, but much of the US media played it up as a disaster
for America and its allies, turning what should have been a major victory into
a blow to public support and morale.
That’s
not the focus of the movie, which is more about the soldiers on the ground and
how they cope with combat. Thanks to the lack of an orchestral score and other
dramatizing effects, things feel real and more day-to-day than you would
expect, even though Lusthog Squad is participating in the Battle of Hue, a
grinding one month affair that was the epicenter of the Tet Offensive. Kubrick
films the action in a way that makes it surprisingly mundane, even when employing a period song. While the environment and
gear is accurate, veterans have said that the tactical behavior of the Marines
is definitely not historical. In keeping with the main theme, these scenes
contain hints of how war changes men, often to the point of dehumanization.
This comes to a head with the climax, where Joker is finally confronted with a
horrifying situation that tests his morality.
Lusthog Squad advances behind a tank at the Battle of Hue.
Full Metal
Jacket is
another great Vietnam film, but is considered by many to be one of Kubrick’s
weaker efforts. It actually lacks many of his familiar tropes such as classical
music and (except for one famous shot) the Kubrick stare. It’s less of a
straight up historical film than an examination of war in general. Ordinary
people, American recruits in this case, are trained to be unflinching killers.
Thus many soldiers lost their humanity, or find themselves morally confused as
they balance said humanity with the expectations of their job. It’s too bad
that the bar was set so high with the first 45 minutes, because it makes the
rest of the movie look weak even when it’s still good.
Rating:
8/10
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