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Title: Full Metal Jacket
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I was talking to a co-worker one time and we were talking about movies that left huge impressions on us visually. See, we couldn’t agree on what could be considered “great writing” for a movie, so the conversation shifted to visuals, which should have been an easier conversation to have. It wasn’t. His idea of a visually stunning movie was “The Fast and the Furious,” mainly because of how many explosions and cut-away editing tricks that were on display. He asked me what movies I felt were visually stimulating, and I gave him two names: Tim Burton and Stanley Kubrick. Though he was familiar with Burton, Kubrick’s films were a mystery to him. I don’t know why. Even if you haven’t seen a Kubrick film, many of how movies have iconic images in them.
I counted three in his Vietnam film “Full Metal Jacket.” Aside from those three images though, “Full Metal Jacket” is easily the most visually stunning Vietnam film I’ve ever seen. It is haunting to look at, and the tone of the film from the facial expressions, to the color, to the shadows create images that seem to drill right into your eyes, leaving them in your head for the rest of your life. That said, while “Full Metal Jacket” will evoke emotions from you for it’s powerful imagery, the movie is, sadly, a shallow shell. The problem, I believe, comes in the fact that the movie never really establishes an emotional connection with the audience, even when the visuals do establish something. In fact, if I were to be fair, I’d go as far as to say this was actually two movies merged into one.
The first half is the more story oriented of the two, but still confusing. At first we’re under the impression that the protagonist of the movie is the cold-hearted Gunnery Sergeant Hartman ®. Lee Ermey), who takes up most of the first half hour of the film, barking orders and abusing the trainees. It’s at this point though a kind soul, the overweight Leonard Lawrence (Vincent D’Onofrio), who starts the film as a shy boy, but then slowly goes mad thanks to the humiliating training. During the second half of the film though, the movie drops these two stories and follows Joker (Matthew Modine), a fellow Marian trainee during the first half of the film, who’s now been promoted to sergeant and is fighting in Vietnam. At this point any narrative the film attempted to establish before is lost.
The rest of the film is about American soldiers killing innocent Vietnam families, side stories about how the soldiers horny needs aren’t being met, and one of the strangest war scenes I’ve seen, where a film crew films a shoot out with the famous sixties song “Surfin Bird” playing in the background. The movie begins with a hopeless situation and go absolutely nowhere. It’s an exercise in futility, where the only thing to see are people going mad. There are no characters to connect with, no larger story arc to follow, and no hidden meaning. Just a bunch of soldiers going crazy to the tune of odd songs and visual tricks. It looks stunning, but I found I just didn’t care much at the end of the day.
- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -
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