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Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Starring Matthew Modine, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Ermey, Adam Baldwin
USA/UK, 1987
Rated R (war violence, strong language)
DR. STRANGELOVE CAN'T DO REALITY
The fact that Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick’s Vietnam War movie, was filmed
entirely on soundstages in England has been advertised by many critics as if it were
a quality of the film. It certainly is a different way of working out locations. Full
Metal Jacket abandons the Oliver Stone war epic and opts for a clumsy string of ‘Nam
vignettes. Sadly, unique approaches cannot salvage a dead movie, which is what I
think Full Metal Jacket is. Labeled the cinema’s "master" by countless film fans,
historians, and filmmakers, Stanley Kubrick has made a few masterpieces: 2001: A
Space Odyssey, his galactic opera, and Dr. Strangelove, his festival of Cold War
caricatures. These films were brilliant because they discussed things that were valuable
or poked fun at certain issues in frightening ways. Full Metal Jacket has been hailed
in many arenas as the definitive war film which surprises me because the movie, a
two-part epic wanna-be, and its isolated anecdotes, though slightly amusing, are
either war clichés or seemingly fabricated horror shows of hilarity. Is this what the
Vietnam War was about?
Full Metal Jacket (the title refers to ammunition) seems to house two short films. Both have the film’s central hero, a private nicknamed Joker (Matthew Modine), but they seem unrelated. The first segment of the film depicts the horrors of basic training. Several marine recruits are at the South Carolina bootcamp which is dominated by the instructor from hell, Sgt. Hartman (Lee Ermey). He verbally and physically abuses the men (he calls them "ladies" and "maggots"), shooting insanely rude remarks like bullets, violating them, and forcing them to violate themselves and their beliefs. Hartman finds a pet victim in a heavy klutz named Leonard or, as he is renamed, Gomer Pyle (Vincent D’Onofrio). While the film’s focal point, Pvt. Joker, struggles to help Pyle in this netherworld, the entire camp gets punished for every frequent mistake Pyle makes.
This boot camp segment is nothing more than a march of characters as empty of humanity as the caricatures in Strangelove. Kubrick keeps shoving his theme of dehumanization down our throats throughout the film but, with dehumanization, there must be humanity first and this film’s characters are not of flesh and blood but are 2-D and, as far as I’m concerned, are corpses. If we are supposed to sympathize with these men who are quickly being molded and brainwashed into becoming killing machines, we must know and witness that they have human qualities that are worth saving from this corruption. The strange thing is that all the time America thought it was going to help Vietnam purge itself of Communism, it was contaminating its own people by replacing their souls with robotic, murderous ones.
People say that Lee Ermey and Vincent D’Onofrio give searing performances. If they are supposed to show any range of emotion, they have not done so. Ermey’s and D’Onofrio’s may be the most interesting characters in the entire movie, and the two play their monotone roles with relative force, but there is nothing here but clown acts. There is not one streak of life in any of these characters, which is both yawn-inducing and may mislead some to think this film is thought-provoking stuff. The first segment is a cartoon with that sinister look of murder borrowed from Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange. It is bitterly hilarious, but with little to say on the effects of war or dehumanization.
The film’s second segment cannot claim to be as entertaining. At least the first part of Full Metal Jacket was absorbing and we got a sense of what the director was hinting at. In the second portion, everything falls apart. Even the few building blocks on violence and terror that the first part provided dissolve under the sheer lack of direction of the film’s message. We meet up again with Pvt. Joker who is now a journalist for the magazine Stars & Stripes. He follows a platoon to get their insights and becomes an unwilling part of a cat-and-mouse showdown between a Vietnamese sniper and the quickly dying men in the group.
There are some interesting scenes in this segment: one in which a television crew slowly pans across soldier-infested grounds. This scene serves no purpose. Another scene has the same crew interviewing men at war. The men are self-conscious in front of the camera and talk about their ideas on Vietnam and the war they’re fighting. That scene too has no purpose.
It is especially discouraging that the film’s hero, Pvt. Joker, is without motivation, evident interest, or insights into the war. He just seems to be a piece of garbage floating around in the wind. All the characters seem this way. Full Metal Jacket is clueless: the Vietnamese population is represented by two prostitutes who come around as easily bought items for American soldiers. The men bargain with the hookers’ managers and the prostitutes satisfy their low-paying customers. The only other significant Vietnamese character is the female sniper in the climactic scene. She is shot and Pvt. Joker must choose whether he wants to put her out of her misery or let her lie there to rot. She yelps, "Shoot me" endlessly in this rather painful scene.
Kubrick’s vision of Vietnam is a world of sameness. I do not mock Kubrick’s desire to film Jacket on British soundstages for location is of little importance with a good movie and a good production designer waiting in the wings, but the film has a gross artificial aura. We see the same environment throughout the second half of the movie: the imported palm trees, the constructed ruined buildings. Kubrick has a lack of vision for Full Metal Jacket, both visually and, worst of all, thematically. The director is a man of great passion for films and we know he tried on this film. However, rather than having the truth of the stupidity of war float to the surface, he lets all truth sink to the bottom.
There is nothing new to be learned from this movie. The first segment shifts to the next with such disregard for continuity that you’re positive the second part belongs to a totally different film. People will say that Kubrick leaves Full Metal Jacket open for discussion and one’s own opinions, but there is nothing here upon which to base opinions. Some of the movie is enjoyable but, as a moralistic tale, Full Metal Jacket is unique, but puny and primitive.
By Andrew Chan
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