Full Metal Jacket

Summary

“I wanted to meet interesting and stimulating people of an ancient culture… and kill them. I wanted to be the first kid on my block to get a confirmed kill!”

Full Metal Jacket was released in 1987. Kubrick had worked on the film for years, performing at least five years of research, after deciding he wanted to make a film focused on the theme of war. After deciding that the war he would focus on was Vietnam, he purchased the right to adapt Gustav Hasford’s novel The Short Timers. He worked on some initial drafts of the screenplay with Gustav, and then brought in screenwriter Michael Herr for a “wash and rinse” to give the dialogue of the film a new life. Michael Herr had performed a similar function on the film Apocalypse Now when he was brought in by Coppola to write some of the narration spoken by Martin Sheen. Herr had also written a book about his experiences in Vietnam called Dispatches which Kubrick had enjoyed. Kubrick continued to bounce ideas off of Hasford and Herr until he had enough material to make the film.

Once the script was completed, Kubrick was able to convince financiers that he was capable of shooting the entire film in East London. This was partially because there was a large factory that was set to be demolished that Kubrick envisioned would properly imitate the Vietnamese city of Hue. Kubrick then meticulously recreated Vietnam for the film by flying in specific species of palm trees and set dressing to make it all work. For actors, Kubrick looked at hundreds of audition tapes to try to find actors that were not big names whom he could mold into what he wanted for the film. He settled on Matthew Modine for the lead role of Joker and cast a bouncer and sometime stage actor named Vincent D’Onofrio to play Lawrence a.k.a. Pyle. For a technical adviser, Kubrick brought in a retired Marine named R. Lee Ermey that began to put the actors through their paces and work them like Marines. Soon, R. Lee Ermey had proven himself so much that he was cast in the role of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, taking the place of Tim Colceri who was originally cast. Ermey was so versatile with Marine drill sergeant dialogue that many of the sayings he used in the film to berate the recruits was his own dialogue.

The filming of Full Metal Jacket was a grueling process and the film was in production from August 1985 through September 1986. Stanley was able to command great performances from his men largely because of the extreme amount of patience he was willing to exert to get what he wanted. For example, the siege sequence that takes place in Hue took a full month to film. Kubrick’s extraordinary patience payed off in creating a truly unique vision of Vietnam.

The film is divided into two halves. The first half revolves around boot camp, the second half takes place in Vietnam. The film begins in Paris Island, South Carolina – Gunnery Sergeant Hartman (R. Lee Ermey) runs the men through their paces in the boot camp. It is a brutal dehumanizing ritual to make them into Marines. He names the men – Snowball, Cowboy, Joker, and Gomer Pyle. The trainee he names Gomer Pyle is a heavy set and soft recruit named Lawrence (Vincent D’Onoffrio.) Hartman rides Lawrence harder than any of the other recruits because Lawrence is weaker than the others. Joker (Matthew Modine) is assigned Lawrence as his bunk mate and as his teaching assignment. He is meant to teach him everything from lacing his shoes to how to assemble his rifle. Lawrence makes mistakes repeatedly which means more work for everyone. He comes to the realization that everyone hates him because of these mistakes. This all leads to a harrowing attack on Lawrence by the other cadets. As the boot camp continues, Lawrence becomes mentally disconnected from the other soldiers in his platoon.

In the second half of the film, Joker is a journalist for Stars and Stripes in Vietnam during the Tet offensive. Joker is tasked with taking the inexperienced Rafter Man (Kevyn Major Howard) into a combat zone. They meet up with Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and his platoon that includes the soldiers Eightball (Dorian Harewood) and the aggressive Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin.) They all enter the besieged city of Hue together and experience firsthand the horrors of urban combat.

Like all of Kubrick’s films, Full Metal Jacket is an experience that was specifically designed by Kubrick to feel unlike any other war film. When I first saw the film in high school, I didn’t really get it. I thought that the first half of the film was absolutely exceptional, but I found the second half of the film underwhelming. I couldn’t understand the performance that Kubrick got out of Matthew Modine and I couldn’t fully grasp the satirical and nihilistic flourishes of the second half of the film. After how stark the first segment of the film was, how could the second half feel so disparate from it? Was this some kind of joke?

Returning to the film for the first time in nearly twenty years, it was a revelatory experience for me. Since the first time I saw the film I have read numerous books on Vietnam including the excellent A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam. After gaining a better understanding of that war, Kubrick’s film began to ring more true. The performances that didn’t feel right when I was fifteen, have aged incredibly well. I had been harsh in my assessment of Matthew Modine’s performance in particular and, revisiting it, I found that he was basically perfect for the role. Kubrick wanted the soldiers in the second half of the film to feel like smart ass kids. He really drives that point home with the Mickey Mouse March sequence. Modine delivers many of his lines with a smug grin on his face. As a teenager this upset me, but as an adult I could see the black humor that Kubrick intended. The first half of the film has always been celebrated. The performances by R. Lee Ermey and Vincent D’Onofrio are both incredible and the propulsive nature of that narrative and unsettling finish are some of the tightest writing that Kubrick put on celluloid. That segment of the film was always heralded as a masterpiece and then the second half was looked at almost like an afterthought. In fact, the second half of the film is the really daunting part of the film. The second half of the film focuses on urban warfare and the ways in which war corrupts the participants and the land where it occurs. It does not look nor feel like other war films. The film does not look to make heroes of its characters. This is plainly obvious after an engagement with a sniper. As a viewer, it is meant for you to ask yourself, “what were we trying to accomplish there if this type of horror was the outcome?”

Overall – Full Metal Jacket is a classic exploration of war by Stanley Kubrick. Full Metal Jacket is a truly one-of-a-kind experience that rivals the very best films made on Vietnam and the war’s impact on the participants that were drafted to fight a war that they didn’t choose. 

Video

Warner Bros. have provided Full Metal Jacket in a stunning new HEVC H.265 2160p transfer in native 4K. This is a big leap from the 2007 Blu-ray released by Warner and presents the film as close to Kubrick’s original vision as we are likely to see until they begin releasing films in 8K. Full Metal Jacket is not a visually explosive film like Kubrick’s incredible 2001: A Space Odyssey or a hypnotic masterpiece like The Shining. The visuals of Full Metal Jacket are much more sparse. The film utilizes the barracks of the boot camp and its almost medical lighting for a good portion of the first half of the film aside from sequences on the obstacle courses which look grey and green in equal measure. Two sequences are bathed in an unnatural blue light for dramatic effect. The second half of the film is more colorful due to the fires set during attacks, but it is still not by any stretch of the imagination a work of beauty like other Kubrick films. The new 4K presentation is the very best that this film can look until a new format arrives. The fine detail improvements are vast and the HDR helps to bring out the little patches of color as they appear.

Audio

Warner Bros. have provided both DTS-HD MA Mono and DTS-HD MA 5.1 tracks for the film. I listened to the DTS-HD MA 5.1 track and found it consistently engaging, especially in the second half of the film. The sound design on Full Metal Jacket is not going to rival the sound design on Apocalypse Now, but it is still effective. The score by Vivian Kubrick is really interesting because it is so sparely used. The use of songs like “Wooly Bully” and “Surfing Bird” give the film a strange satiric quality when they are used and they really come through the speakers during those sequences. Overall – it’s another well done track from Warner.

Supplements:

• Featured on the UHD Disc:
• Audio Commentary with Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onfrio, R. Lee Ermey, and critic/screenwriter Jay Cocks
• Featured on the included Blu-ray:
• Full Metal Jacket – Between Good and Evil – this half-hour documentary on the film is decent, but I felt like it didn’t quite hit the nail on the head like the excellent documentary on the making of The Shining. This is cobbled together from interviews with stars Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, and more, but the film also talks to people that would not have been my first choice to interview about the film. They just seemed to be around. If the documentary had just stuck to those intimately involved in the film, it would have been much better. 
• Theatrical Trailer 

Overall Scores:

Video – 4.5/5 

Audio – 4.5/5

Supplements – 2.5/5

Overall – 4.5/5

Full Metal Jacket is Kubrick’s vision of the Vietnam war. It’s a dark film that has a truly nihilistic and satirical world view that makes the film stand out from other war films. While I feel that Apocalypse Now is the best Vietnam war film, and Paths of Glory is Kubrick’s best war film, Full Metal Jacket is still a wonderful film. Everyone agrees that the first half of the film is essentially perfect, but I had underestimated the second half of the film for about twenty years. Revisiting the film I found performances more engaging and the storytelling tighter than I remembered. I was so enamored with the film that I quickly read co-writer Michael Herr’s book Kubrick before I typed up this review. For those who have never seen Full Metal Jacket, it is an experience that you are not likely to forget. As I found out this weekend, it is also an experience that deserves a second viewing. Warner Bros. have provided the best video and audio presentation of the film possible and the video in particular is a big upgrade from the prior Blu-ray release. The supplements are a little weak, but this release still comes highly recommended.