Kubricks Legacy ! (Full Metal Jacket (DVD))

Member Name: 666disturbed

Product:	Full Metal Jacket (DVD)
Date:	04/09/02 (1256 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Kubrick film, -, -

Disadvantages: Kubrick, sadly, is dead! , -, -

Based on a novel by Gustav Hasford

Screenplay by Stanley Kubrick
Michael Herr
Gustav Hasford

Produced by Stanley Kubrick

Directed by Stanley Kubrick



Cast List:

Matthew Modine Private Joker
Arliss Howard Private Cowboy
Adam Baldwin Animal Mother
Vincent D'Onofrio Leonard Lawrence / Private Gomer Pyle
Lee Ermey Gunnery Sgt. Hartman
Dorian Harewood Eightball
Kevyn Major Howard Rafterman
Ed O'Ross Walter J. Schinoski / Lt. Touchdown
Jon Stafford Doc Jay
John Terry Lt. Lockhart
Kirk Taylor Payback



Filmed between August 1985 and September 1986, this is a Kubrick classic. It is based on a book called “The Short Timers” by Gustav Hasford, of which I have not managed to get a copy anywhere.
The film is split into two parts, I will give a brief summary of each of the parts and describe some awesome scenes, I don’t think it is actually possible to spoil this film by giving away the plot, but if I think of any I’ll be sure to leave them out.

Part 1 – Paris Island Boot Camp.

Shooting of this part of the film took 6 months and production had to be halted for 20 weeks because of sickness among actors and casting crew alike.
The film opens as we meet the new recruits joining Uncle Sam’s green machine (Marines), in order to train for conflict in South Vietnam.
We meet the recruits as each one is having his head shaved, (a loss of previous identity), and is preparing to find out what the next 3 months at boot camp entails.
We then see the would be Marines meeting there drill instructor for the first time, Sgt. Hartman.

Lee Ermy was selected for the part of Hartman by Kubrick, after originally being employed to be an advisor, but Kubrick was so impressed by Ermy, who was a genuine Paris Island Drill Sergeant that he almost imme
diately gave him the part of the mean instructor after seeing the way he handled others that he was interviewing for the part. Most of the obscenities and extremely crude but witty remarks in the film are in fact Ermy’s own. He said he developed “New and interesting ways to degrade recruits for personal amusement” back in his days as a real Drill Instructor.

We are slowly introduced to the main characters in the film, who all get nicknamed immediately from their bullish instructor, Private Cowboy, Private Joker and the poor and very unfortunate Gomer Pyle.
Pyle’s misery starts almost straight away as Hartman takes a dislike to the unfortunate recruit and begins to make his life a total misery ! All for being a bit fat and having a smirk on his face !

The feeling from the first part of this film is the power within man.
It is about comradeship, togetherness, the want to survive and the overcoming of adversity.
It is also of course about how the Marine Core turned men into killers and teaches them to survive. More importantly how to want to survive during jungle warfare. It is a toughening up for something far worse than boot camp could ever prepare them for.

This part is also, sadly, about how cruel men can be to each other and how man can be driven to despair and suicide caused by the cruelty of another.

All of Boot Camp is filmed in England in Bassingbourne with the barracks being made in Enfield (Famous for the manufacture of machine guns of the same name). John Alcott the cinematographer says each scene was shot about 15-20 times, some were shot 30 times as Kubrick wanted to get the very best out of the actors, believing that an actor will not put in his best performance on the first few takes. Clearly he is on to something as the first part of the film comes across as a very believable story within it’s own right.

Watch out for scene where Private Pyle has to cross the assault
course, it makes you laugh and cry at the same time. Whilst Ermy has some incredible put downs as Hartman which are side splittingly funny, you cannot feel anything but feel sorry for the poor unfortunate Pyle whose day goes from bad to worse, to absolutely awful !



Part 2 – Hue, Vietnam

Kubrick once said “Einstein is all style and no concept, Chaplin is all concept and no style”. He dearly wanted to make a film which had both concept and style, this he achieves in Full Metal Jacket especially in the second part of the film.

The opener starts with the two main characters, Cowboy & Joker, enjoying a beer at a bar in Vietnam, a very famous phrase which has reverberated around the world is said by a prostitute that appears in this scene, “Me sucky sucky, me love you long time!” Joker gets his camera stolen and the boys end up back at the base during the “Tet” cease-fire.

Joker has been selected for Journalism duty not just a plain old “Grunt “, (Marines are referred to as grunts because that is the noise they make when they hit the floor wearing a full back pack). The entire second part of the film has Joker narrating as if he we’re making a record of events to submit to the “Stars & Stripes Magazine”, which is a propaganda leaflet for his fellow countrymen as we learn during the scene where he receives orders to report from the front line.

Joker meets his old pal Cowboy, who is in charge of a rather rag-tag bunch of war hardened Marines including Doc Jay, Eightball and the completely nutty Animal Mother.
There is a lot of testosterone and “blokey” things going on at this point of the film as natural male rivalry takes over and the boys show off to each other a little, Joker does a superb John Wayne impression which breaks the ice a little. Doc Jay explains to Joker that Animal Mother is a perfectly normal human being, all he
needs is someone to throw hand grenades at him for the rest of his life.

The crew have to move out through the city of Hue. Cowboy manages to get them all lost and they have to take some rather dodgy shortcuts through the war torn and deserted city, this goes well until they encounter a sniper.
This was the part of the film that really caught Kubrick’s imagination, he describes with much enthusiasm, “Every camera move is a stalking, every zoom a death penalty !”.

The ensuing scene is heartbreaking and runs until the film ends leaving the viewer quivery lipped and reflective of the events that surrounded the most futile war in recent history.

Look out for the poster that says “In Vietnam the wind doesn’t blow, it sucks”.

The second part of the film was shot on location in Becton, which is an abandoned gas work town at the side of the river Thames, they used explosive to blow up buildings and shot thousands of rounds of ammo into walls. Kubrick was dead right when he noted that nothing looked more realistic than a rock that was in fact a real rock. Everything that is used in this set is a real building or piece of debris, it is unrivalled in its realism.

Distributed by Warner Bros
Running time 116 minutes

The official Disturbed rating 10/10 !

Second only to the legendary Apocalypse Now in my opinion !

Thanks for reading my Review, I hope Dooyoo have sorted out the rating and commet section, coz I could do with some feed back !


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Post Script - If this opinion finally submits i'll be as pleased as punch after a crocodile kicking session !

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