Review of Full Metal Jacket (1987) by Haffi H — 23 Dec 2015

With a simple message and a simple structure, perhaps Full Metal Jacket wants to convey the experience of war as viscerally as possible. But it's hard to call this a war film, as there's no one to root for, or sympathize with, or identify with. This is certainly a Kubrick film: masterfully crafted and interesting with naturalistic performances and provocative images. But it's also something less: in its negativity and cynicism and dehuminization, it's more of a nihilist jaunt through violence and depravity than an artistic statement. There's no real tragedy, only the fate of poor Gomer Pyle, probably the unique spirit that can't survive in the army. Instead of hinting at his themes, Kubrick has his "Joker" shout them at you, informing his conversant that the peace symbol and "born to kill" on his helmet represents "the duality of man".

Perhaps Full Metal Jacket is about nothing more than how humans can kill and be killed. Or perhaps it's a meandering and ultimately toothless attempt to satirize war by having monstrous men do monstrous things on camera. But what we'll never know is why Kubrick slowed down so suddenly, how the man who once wished to film Napoleon with 50,000 real soldiers settled for R Lee Ermey slinging violent language at young men. How can the same man who made 2001 make Full Metal Jacket after Apocalypse Now and The Deer Hunter already existed? What happened to the compelling and heroic humanity of Paths of Glory, or unstoppable craftsman of The Shining? It's safe to say we'll never know.

But as for Full Metal Jacket, there's blood, there's yelling and there's death. There's men who are mere cartoons of men, foreigners who amount to nothing more than whores and cowardly snipers. Lacking the dynamism and sheer brilliance and beauty of every Kubrick film from Paths of Glory to The Shining, Full Metal Jacket just doesn't measure up. You'll laugh at first, until you realize that a man is being tortured on screen, and then you'll hate the rest of them, and you might just wish that they all die, or better, that they all get killed, which is apparently all that humans can do according to this movie.