FULL METAL JACKET
(contains spoilers)
There are issues with Full Metal Jacket, but let's focus on the positives.
The film is barely 2 minutes old when Lee Ermey explodes into it. I say
explodes, because this swearing, sweating, quote a maniac incompetent
drill sergeant doesn't so much steal the show. He is the show, the
camera and the viewer's eye are drawn to him and (almost) him alone from
that moment on. Most of his lines aren't quotable here as not very PC
out of context (or indeed, in context!) but some of the best in his
introduction alone include not knowing "shit was stacked that high", a
fine character reveal about his views on racism, and the legendary line
about what Pvt Cowboy is the type of man for - the punchline of which
was an adlib by Ermey which so shocked Kubrick he insisted it got kept
in the second take. A lot is made about Lee Ermey's adlibbing (only one
of two men allowed to do so by Kubrick, other being Peter Sellers) but
it gives the wrong impression: the man was actually word perfect on his
script, and a lot of the adlibs were from his audition tape which they
then added to his actual script. A perfectionist, Ermey learnt all that
dialogue inside and out within a week, so that Kubrick became so
impressed with someone as crazy prepared as the director liked to be,
that any inspiration was accepted. See the hinted at line to Cowboy
above, hinted at only because this might get read by teens!
The
Drill Sergeant is easily the axis around which the rest of the film
orbits, and the only person to exhibit similar interest in the film is
Pvt Pyle/Lawrence, played wonderfully by Victor D'Onofrio, one of my
mum's favourite actors. While Ermey's role is relatively straight (he
doesn't believe he's in danger right up to the final moment), D'Onofrio
has to "go on a journey" (as actors like to put it) from goofy to victim
to sociopath. He pulls off all three with aplomb, going from likeable
to sympathetic to scary in the flash of a moment. Critics like to point
out Pyle would have been out of the marines within a week, but then, R
Lee Ermey would always point out (as a man who had been a drill seargant
before turning to acting, and apparently had a reputation as being a
very good one), his Hartman is not meant to be a competent man. Hence he
doesn't spot the signs of cracking (note cracking starts fully after
hazing incident and when Laurence becomes a model soldier - you'd expect
a decent teacher to spot those worrying signs immediately, or indeed,
that some of the ammo on the base has gone MIA), hence he talks lovingly
of the marksmanship of Lee Harvey Oswald. That no one notices Pyle has
the Thousand Year Stare at the centre of the film (the look a soldier
gets after their first kill) BEFORE he's even left training.
This all ends in the pivotal moment where Pyle shoots Ermey dead, before
turning the gun on himself. The film has been electric up to this
point, and this feels like the sad but inevitable climax to the
underlying tension.
Now, the problem with Full Metal Jacket is
that there is a third man in this scene. Our main character - de facto
so far, but from now, actually. Pvt Joker is nowhere near as interesting
as these two men, and when the film goes to Vietnam, it turns into just
another war film.
And the big problem is this: we've just killed off the only 2 interesting characters 50 mins into a 2 hour film.
After this, the film becomes a series of set pieces, some of them
interesting, some not, but none have the electricity or tension that
Ermey and D'onofrio bring to the proceedings.
It's also notable
that a film which goes out to say that war is hell, civilians tend to be
the ones that get fucked over and that sociopaths (the helicopter
gunner) have no place in the army... has a reputation for being a cool
war film. That Hartman is designed to be a bad instructor yet the hawks
(and the phony veterans who are everywhere on social media, Mary Sueing
themselves into the heart of Vietnam when they were doing office jobs or
weren't even born) applaud him as a hero. He ain't a hero, Alec Baldwin
isn't a hero in Glengarry Glen Ross, society is missing the goddamn
point. But perhaps that is the point, you can't make an anti-war film,
as soon as the explosions and body count starts, it will always appeal
to those you are trying to oppose.
Perhaps Full Metal Jacket
would have been better if it had never gone to Vietnam, and focused on
the training. Certainly, it wouldn't have done worse to keep the only 2
characters of note in the story. Sadly, the film dies with a whimper (a
snipers bullet, even?) the moment Hartman and Pyle die, leaving the film
far less than the sum of its parts.
