FULL METAL JACKET A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1987 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: FULL METAL JACKET has echoes of some of Kubrick's best work. It is episodic, noisy, sad, and funny, and sometimes gives a distorted view but it is also a powerful film, without much competition. It is one of the two or three best films about the Vietnam War.
Well, the Vietnam War film seems to be with us at last. While the war went on and for a good while afterward it seemed a taboo subject. People, and in particular film backers, did not want to make films about so downbeat a subject. With the passing of time some of the wounds have healed and we have some gung-ho Vietnam films. The RAMBOs and MISSING IN ACTIONs made it entertaining (if unrealistic) as the John Wayne films a generation earlier did for World War II. Now serious Vietnam films are being made. We had DEER HUNTER, APOCALYPSE NOW, THE KILLING FIELDS, and PLATOON. Kubrick's latest film is FULL METAL JACKET.
The film is the history of a Marine known only as Lt. Joker (played by Matthew Modine). The story is the memories of Joker from the war and, like memories, it is episodic. The first 3/4-hour of the film is the story of Joker's boot camp experience on Paris Island. 90% of the words you hear during this story are yelled by Joker's drill instructor. From there we follow John's early Vietnam career in some shorter episodes, then the film ends in another long story. Joker becomes a correspondent for the only newspaper the brass respects, the military's own STARS AND STRIPES. By their own admission, all they publish is good-news war news and stories about soldiers giving half their income to down-trodden Vietnamese. The war, and in particular the Tet Offensive, is seen from his ironic viewpoint. While the film is not as exaggerated as DR. STRANGELOVE, it always has a tragic and usually a comic undertone. The film starts bitter and funny like DR. STRANGELOVE and slowly transforms to sad and bitter like PATHS OF GLORY. Those are Kubrick's two best films and FULL METAL JACKET could well come to be accepted by many as his third best.
FULL METAL JACKET is not the Vietnam War the grunts saw. That was PLATOON. It isn't the war the Cambodians saw. That was THE KILLING FIELDS. The Vietnam War the middle-aged right wing saw was THE GREEN BERETS. If I ever figure out from whose viewpoint the was was seen in THE DEER HUNTER or APOCALYPSE NOW, I'll let you know. FULL METAL JACKET is the Vietnam War that the college kids who didn't go (and a few who did) saw. As such it has some truths, some distortions, and more than a little nostalgia value. Rate it a +2 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper ihnp4!mtgzz!leeper mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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