Review of Full Metal Jacket (1987) by Bernie M — 25 Oct 2014

Director Stanley Kubrick done some nice explorations in his projects. He'd explored space with systematic corruption and boredom, and the insane, hysteric horror of a human mind and condition. Both of those are his 3.5-star masterpieces. His best work belongs to the battlefield of the war genre. In that field he'd explored the consequences of stopping yourself from following commands and get framed and shot for cowering, and the satiric reason why we need to learn to "stop worrying and love the bomb." Now before his final project of "Eyes Wide Shut," he returned to the battlefield one more time to add another the story to the chronicles of the Vietnam War, and it'd resulted to be his best masterpiece.

"Full Metal Jacket" explores the process of a new recruit entering from boot camp to the battlefields in the U.S. Marine Corps. The first 20 minutes were the recruits' training period. It was a masterful exposition with the cast only saying things that are around under the category of "Sir, yes sir!" to R. Lee Ermey's not-so fictional character when he was a drill instructor at that time the film takes place. He stands out and shines the most out of the cast when his performance is so good that it's probably the best of the film. He was also expressing a theme with a message to be analyzed and he had Vincent D'Onofrio as his volunteer to help out that message to the unfortunate outcome: D'Onofrio's character was mirroring a bit of how Jack Nicholson's character gone through in "The Shining," but by the subject of the expressed theme of hypocrite bullying.

Now for the main story that'd took the next 93 minutes was the main setting: fighting in the war on tour. Matthew Modine's character James Davis is the story's narrator going over how haunting and violent the Vietnam War can from what he'd experienced from commander of the recruits with a thirst to see combat to "later becomes an independent-minded combat correspondent." We'll be soon get in combat side-by-side with his old comrades from Sergeant Hartman's (R. Lee Ermey) boot camp, when he's nicknamed the Joker - representing some of the film's occasional light-hearted humor.

The way how Davis's experiences in the war were constructed in the film was nicely done as usual in the war genre. The effects of combat, including the power and energy from the actors pretending/acting like they're in the war, and the performances are what a war flick reload to keep the power going.

"Full Metal Jacket" is a nice addition to the Vietnam War chronicles with the usual qualities at their efforts to match the pounding of a war's battlefield, making this war drama Kubrick's best masterful work in exploring more in the process of serving a war while at the same time rarely reminiscing few of his past explorations, with stuff to express. (B+).