Full Metal Jacket

Back in high school, I saw the opening half of Full Metal Jacket at a friend's house. It's the more famous half, simply depicting the rigorous and hellacious basic training regimen experienced by would-be Marines. I'm sure you're at least familiar with it; the drill sergeant alone has dozens of memorable gay-baiting one-liners like "I bet you're the kind of guy who would fuck a person in the ass and not even have the goddamn common courtesy to give him a reach-around!" and "Only steers and queers come from Texas, Private Cowboy, and you don't look much like a steer to me, so that kinda narrows it down!" and "I bet you could suck a golfball through a garden hose!" It's funny enough, but also absolutely terrifying in its own right, and it ends with a disturbing scene in which one mentally broken recruit takes drastic measures into his own hands.

Anyway, I had to leave my friend's house right then, as the movie shifted into its very different second half (taking place in the middle of the Vietnam War), but when I asked him what I missed the next day, he seemed apathetic. "Nothing, really," was more or less the answer I got. Fast forward to tonight, when I'm finally ready to check out the second half of Full Metal Jacket. Clearly, my friend had missed some important or thematic message in high school; there obviously had to be something big that happened in the movie's second half that tied back into the boot camp scenes.

Eh, not really. My friend was right. While the rest of the movie wasn't a snoozer by any stretch, it did feel very much like any old generic war movie, and I was left at least a little bit disappointed. The movie's first half, after all, is iconic, and for good reason. It's dark, it's tense, and although it's funny, it's also sort of psychologically horrifying. It's almost as if the movie is two separate short films; the first act is so self-contained and well-made, and what follows has nearly no connection whatsoever to it. I could be missing something here, but I'll give myself credit and assume otherwise. If you want a good Vietnam War movie that shows you why war is hell, watch the first half of this one and then just check out The Deer Hunter.

One last note! Like everything else Stanley Kubrick has ever done, this was visually stunning. Haunting, arresting, beautiful - pick your own word. The guy just flat out knew how to frame a shot and pan a camera. Damn.