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.
(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.
