Full Metal Jacket (25th Anniversary Edition) [Blu-ray]

When "Full Metal Jacket" made its theatrical debut on June 26, 1987, many critics pounced on it. Stanley Kubrick, they asserted, had gone from being a great innovator to a follower. He was now behind the curve instead of out in front of it, as he'd always been, because so many Vietnam movies already had been released -- "Apocalypse Now," "The Deer Hunter" and "Platoon" among them. If Kubrick wasn't washed up, they seemed to be saying, he certainly was slipping down Has-Been Hill.There are so many things wrong with that stance that I would have trouble finding where to begin. But I will say this: Each of these films is its own world, and each is very much a product of its director's style and vision, and each does different things. "Apocalypse Now" is Francis Ford Coppola's take on the war, and it's the most surreal and deliberately absurd. Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter" benefited from its significant focus on the home front during the war -- while the director did present the trauma suffered by soldiers, he also succeeded in depicting the hurts the war inflicted on loved ones, families, even an entire community. Oliver Stone's "Platoon" was, oddly, the most "realistic" of the four films, and in my opinion the least imaginative, though I still think it's a fine film.And then we have Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." More than any of the other three films, it is a character study. The character in question is Joker, who has joined the Marine Corps, he claims, because he wants to kill. But there is much more to him; he is, in fact, a very sensitive individual and, compared with his peers, an intellectual who quotes Carl Jung and ponders "the duality of man."Many commentators have declared the film consists of two acts, but actually, it's a classic three-act structure. Act One is the boot camp sequence. Act Two follows Joker as he deals with his assignment as a military journalist. Act Three begins with the Tet Offensive, and ultimately forces Joker to give up his stance as journalist/observer in favor of soldier/participant.I do agree with people who say the first act of this film is so impressive and overwhelming that the rest of the picture can seem anti-climactic. Much of the reason lies with R. Lee Ermey, whos portrayal of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman is one of the most unforgettable performances in cinema history. Hartman's view, apparently, is that boot camp should be as hellish as possible, the better to prepare these would-be Marines from what they'll face in Vietnam. And the irony is he's right; it's just that he takes it to such an extreme that it results in two tragic deaths. Prior to that, though, Hartman unleashes upon his trainees a nonstop stream of profanity, verbal abuse, physical punishment and general humiliation.The result is a sequence that is both funny and horrible. Hartman is a brutal man, but his endless invective is laced with comments that one can't help but be amused by. Ermey was originally hired as a consultant on the film, and told Kubrick the original dialogue should be changed because it was unrealistic. Ermey, with the idea of playing the role of Hartman himself, performed part of the script to show Kubrick how he thought it should be done. Kubrick gave him the role.His favorite target is Leonard Lawrence, whom he calls "a disgusting fatbody," among other terms of endearment. Unfortunately, the slow-witted Leonard, or "Private Pyle," as Hartman calls him, cracks under the constant pressure.SPOILER ALERT! Skip the next paragraph if you haven't seen the film.Leonard shoots Hartman, then himself. The sole witness to the carnage is Joker.The film immediately shifts to Act Two, in Vietnam. Joker has attained the rank of sergeant and is a correspondent for "Stars and Stripes." Although he seems to like the job, he questions his superior about the euphemisms that are being used by U.S. forces to describe their actions in Vietnam. "Search and destroy," for example, becomes "sweep and clear."One of Joker's pals is Rafterman, a combat photographer who is frustrated with simply taking pictures; he wants to see the action, the front lines. Joker, who outranks him, basically tells him that, if he has his way, Rafterman won't get his chance. Rafterman's mother, Joker jokes, would do him physical harm when he returned to the States if he'd let anything happen to her son.Then comes the Tet Offensive, which changes both men's lives. The North Vietnamese attack on what is usually a holiday cease-fire. In the midst of the resulting carnage, Joker's superior orders him to go to Phu Bai to report on the situation. Rafterman asks to go with him; Joker tells his superior he doesn't want Rafterman along. His superior overrules him; Joker and Rafterman head for the combat zone.Act Three concerns their experiences on the battlefield. They meet up with a squad that includes Cowboy, who went through boot camp with Joker. Cowboy is now a sergeant. As the squad moves out on a patrol, accompanied by Joker and Rafterman, the squad leader is killed. Cowboy, now a sergeant, is ordered by headquarters to lead the platoon. In the sequence that follows, a sniper starts picking off members of the squad, one by one -- including Cowboy.The survivors finally find the sniper. And it is there, in the movie's penultimate scene, that Joker must face a moral choice -- or, more accurately, a dilemma, as there is no good choice to be made. Still, he must decide -- and makes a decision that surely will haunt him for years to come."Full Metal Jacket" ends with the Marine squad marching through the ravaged war zone, glad to be alive, singing the theme song to "The Mickey Mouse Club." It's one last, absurd commentary on the grim absurdity we call "war."This is a terrific film. Over the years, it has grown in stature, with critics and audiences alike finding more and more to like. I heartily recommend it.

This is an iconic film from the Vietnam era. I had not seen it for years but remembered many of the scenes. It is a powerful movie that probably could not be made today.

When I teach my film classes, I find that Kubrick (along with Hitchcock) is one of the most misunderstood filmmakers of the last century. Why is an essential component of this filmmaker (as well as others) lost in the translation? Part of it seems to be the separation between film history/criticism in the United States, where film enthusiasts seem content with the film alone, and forget that, prior to the internet, movies existed within a network of criticism that extended from the Westcoast Studios to the Eastcoast critics, and stretched overseas, where brilliant essayists like Truffaut were able to pick apart the latest offerings in the pages of the Cahiers du Cinema. These filmmakers used the theater as an extension of a critical dialogue that helped explain their core philosophies; the New york Critics and European Essayists were really cinematic linguists who helped to make sense of the "linguistic" complexity of a medium whose essential grammar seems to be more or less intuitive, both concrete and abstract.The transition to more escapist fare (at least in the late 70s studio Hollywood system) has meant a transition in the critical world as well; with the popularity of the Cinematic Essayist waning in the last 20 years, being instead replaced by schtick and the "every man" approach to film reviews, and a cruel thumbs-up, thumbs-down approach -- more or less a symptom of our collective attention deficit. While these approaches are necessary, the lack of educated "cinematic linguists" is resulting in the loss of understanding when it comes to our most important filmmakers, of which Kubrick is undoubtedly one.For instance, it surprises most people to know that one of our most important stylists considered himself to be an "objective director." Kubrick's minimalist, nuanced, distanced style is really the product of his core philosophy which was to "observe" rather than to "impart." Kubrick aligned himself with documentarians who used aesthetic restraint in crafting ethnographic narratives. In fact, if you really study the man -- his writings, his interviews -- you will find that his entire career was really a quest for cinematic truth. He constantly struggled against his own interpretation and impressions of events, to try to give a multi-faceted view of reality and drama, of which he believed that narrative itself was really an unnatural hallucination imposed on a series of random events by the mind's need to rationalize and organize.Kubrick struggled against not only studio narrative -- the classic three-act structure -- which he found predictable and as pedestrian as an overly familiar nursery rhyme; but he also resisted the narrative of the mind, its need to simplify, reduce, and impose. Even more than that, Kubrick struggled against the medium itself.In an interview, Kubrick opined about the need to import rocks onto the set of Full Metal Jacket, to acquire the realism he knew would be beyond his reach with simulation. Sounding a lot like Jorge Luis Borges speaking about the problems of a truly realistic map, he explained the natural processes that would go into the formation of those rocks, with which Hollywood verisimilitude just could not compete. Importing those rocks is proof of Kubrick's devotion to objectivity, which he felt was constantly compromised and corrupted by the cinematic medium itself (never mind that those rocks existed on a fabricated sound stage in London -- but Kubrick's philosophy on realism/formalism was always filled with contradictions).It's interesting to note that critical interpretation of Stanley Kubrick largely fails because it excludes the man's own take on his own material. Never being one to shut down another's opinion, Kubrick nevertheless had very strong and opinionated feelings about his own films, opinions that seem incredibly out-of-step with popular interpretation of his work.I would like to remind the reader (whoever has been kind enough to stay with me thus far), an obvious fact, that will seem more obvious in retrospect -- Kubrick had a lifelong fascination with the propagandistic nature of cinema as well as the theme of social brainwashing. A better word for brainwashing is "conditioning" as it's broader and encompasses what Kubrick felt was the most consistent theme running throughout the entirety of his work. Kubrick was obsessed with how man's psyche could be conditioned -- through media, through government, through aristocracy, through peer pressure, etc. And in the end, he was fascinated by the struggle between an individual's innate nature and the outside, coercive forces that threatened to eliminate his nature or suppress it once and for all."Full Metal Jacket" has the observationalist impulse of a documentary, the lyric quality of silent cinema, the rigorous technical prowess of Max Ophuls, and the elliptical, bifurcated narrative of an art house movie. In light of these influences, "Full Metal Jacket" is less an unconventional, frustrating war movie, than a logical realization of Kubrick's core aesthetic principles as applied to the Viet Nam conflict. That being the case, what unites the two "halves" of Full Metal Jacket is the theme of "social conditioning." A soldier is like a full metal jacket -- his outer shell is formed by a rigid, brutalizing, indifferent, nearly industrial process, and yet, somewhere beneath is the soft material that can prove pliant and powerful in the wrong hands. Viewed from this perspective, the second half of "Full Metal Jacket" is not as off-putting as some have unfairly suggested. For those who are intimately familiar with the man's philosophies, the "second half" is a natural consequence of the first half, and succeeds brilliantly in emphasizing Kubrick's fascination with man's duality -- a duality that becomes more apparent in a sustained and prolonged conflict between two national dualities.(If you really want insight into the work of Kubrick or other filmmakers, do not divorce them from their influences, or their own philosophies which exist in interviews, private notes, and other secondary and third sources).

Love it scene to scene switching fantastic dramaLook at the militaryGomer Pyle excellentlove it bought it happy to be prime didn't know the movies free ones or buy or rent enjoy

Viewing

Wonderful war movie. I'm a girl but I love movies of all kinds. I put off seeing this complete movie for years until I said to my self, 'Ok, it's Stanley Kubrick. So take a look'. I'm sorry I waited so long. Ladies, if you are one of those who can't watch anything but 'happy' movies, then I warn you not to watch this movie.That said, I could not stop laughing during the first hour of this movie. I was embarrassed that I actually enjoyed it but it's rough to watch for sure. I would call it a dark comedy. After watching it twice I began noticing similarities of this Kubrick film to his horror masterpiece "The Shining". There a many scenes that have the exact same flavor. Creepy, funny (in a dark way) and very intelligent.I won't go into the brilliant acting talents of the major characters. I'll let you see for yourself. But you will not forget this movie once you have seen it.BrilliantFunnyHorrifyingintelligentKubrick strikes again!

This movie is very graphic. If you aren’t a fan of people dying or getting blown up this movie is not for you. I can handle my gore but this movie put gore to a new level.

THIS HAS IT SAD MOMENTS. WHAT MOVIE ABOUT THE WAR DOESN’T? I BOUGHT THIS FOR MY HUSBAND, NORMALLY I HATE THESE KINDS OF MOVIES. I SAT THROUGH THE WHOLE THING. IT IS A POWER MOVIE.

Another brilliant Kubrick film. Has he ever made a bad film? I think not.Almost like two films spliced together, the first part covering the hard training and preparation and the second focussed on the attritional war in Vietnam. One of my favourite films with truly great performances by all. Lee R Emery smashes it as the marine drill sgt, which I believe he actually once was in real life.

There are no negatives for this movie-it is part of the old movie machinery where talent and experience counted the most, something that is looked at today with utmost derision and tangible hate, and the reason why the modern hellweird film production is dead to me. About the flick-divided into two parts-training and the actual war campaign with all its dead on veracity-the movie is the anathema for the feminist - pinko pc crowd, that has destroyed the last traces of intelligence and respect. 2hrs of brutal honesty, blood, suffering, gore, fear and bizzare humour. Enjoy!

Fantastic film which introduced R Lee Ermey to British audiences. This is a classic Vietnam film, that was filmed entirely in the UK, this must be one of Stanley Kubrick's best films.

DVD played fine for the first hour, but sadly after that it kept freezing intermittently and became pixelated at points

Another Brilliant film by Stanley Kubrick.