Full Metal Jacket

My Top 10 favorite movie.

I laugh so fucking hard during the bootcamp scenes.

These are great days we're living, bros. We are jolly green giants..walking the Earth..with guns. These people we wasted here today are the finest human beings we will ever know... After we rotate back to the world, we're gonna miss not having anyone around that's worth shooting.

I don't think I've met anyone who didn't love the first half of this film, but I have heard of people not liking the second half. While I like the first half more, I like it more by just a touch. The whole film is flat out amazing.

The thing about the first half that is amazing to me is how fast it moves. While watching this time, I looked down at the run time when it was finishing and noticed that 45min had gone by when it felt like 15. This section starts off humorous for sure. All the phrases used to put down the new soldiers make me laugh, and different reactions to them as well. Then, the longer we go into the sequence the more we start to feel how dark this is. The tone shift is wonderful, and sets you up for the halfway finale.

The second half does the same thing, but in a totally different context. Joker starts off using humor to deflect what he's feeling, but then by the end you really get into his emotion and personal conflict. That last major shot (no pun intended) makes you stay with him and his reactions instead of seeing everyone else.

Frankly, this is one of Kubrick's best films, and that is saying a lot.

Stanley Kubrick shows us the complete Vietnam War experience, with all its dark and dirty depths. Like he did with _2001: A Space Odyssey_, Kubrick essentially splits _Full Metal Jacket_ into two standalone films. Here, they’re distinguished by setting: basic training or the front lines. At the exhaustively disciplined South Carolina academy, troops quickly learn to suppress their emotions and gobble down the shit sandwiches they’re offered. In the field, those rations are tripled. From the moment they sign on the line and sit down for a buzz in the barber’s chair, these soldiers are ambushed virtually every day. Whether it’s a mouthy drill sergeant with a hard-on for punishment or the scarcely-seen Viet Cong guerrillas who lace crumbling cities with snipers and IEDs, each morning greets them with a fresh set of lethal tripwires and invisible calamities. As the adage says, war is hell, but that doesn’t exclusively apply to the overseas field of battle.

Most of _Full Metal Jacket_’s best lines and memorable moments occur in its first half, when R. Lee Ermey marches purposefully through the frame and into our collective faces. As the truculent drill sergeant tasked with hardening this class of nervous puppies into a company of brutal killing machines, Ermey takes great pride in undressing the unprepared and stomping feelings until they’re flat. That he does so with a flair for wit and a vulgar, potent sense of humor makes him spellbinding, if not appealing. As he squashes any trace of individuality, we guffaw. As he turns the company’s rage upon itself, we widen our eyes and hold our breath. As he exploits one particular omega type beyond the limits of mental endurance, we dread the explosion. And we still aren’t prepared for the shape that takes. Vincent D’Onofrio burst onto the global scene in this role; the slow and delicate doughboy who’s singled out as carrion by a predator who likes to play with his food. D’Onofrio’s agonized misunderstanding is crushing, and the evidence of his snapping point chilled me to the bone. He’s fantastic, both the film’s beating heart and its blood-stained teeth.

Which is not to discount the profundity of the second half, which depicts a far looser (and more precarious) life inside a ravaged combat zone. Here, the troops compartmentalize their anxiety, masking a fear of instant, random death with steady doses of machismo and gallows humor. The disposability of human life is emphasized, again and again. The men’s mutual senses of loneliness, hopelessness, exhaustion and frustration manifest in many different ways. That is, until the platoon comes under fire and, all of a sudden, their training kicks in and they mindlessly get busy like automatons. This system was built to churn out broken, depraved lunatics and then dump them, with little support, in a far-off land to spray agony upon their surroundings. No shock that collateral damage would be considered an acceptable side-effect.

This is a hard, mean, dark film. There is some hope in _Full Metal Jacket_, but it’s short-lived and duly punished. It shows us the proverbial flower, blooming through a crack in the sidewalk, then yanks it up by its roots and throws it into the fire. It has antithetical beauty, depicting a bleak and unhappy message in a way that’s brisk, lively and funny. Often riotously so. And, typical of a Kubrick film (as he was notorious about re-trying takes until everything was perfect), it’s adorned with countless career-making performances. Surely one of the most stirring war movies ever made, even if it doesn’t flaunt a truth most of us would like to hear. These guys were shell-shocked before they even touched a rifle.

The first half of this movie is perfect. The second half turns into a great war movie but can't quite live up to the first half. R. Lee Ermey (RIP) steals the show. He plays one hell of a drill sergeant. Vincent D'Onofrio is fantastic too. The war half feels gritty and real. I love the music but they are a little cliche.

This truly is one of the best "war movies" out there. The visuals in this movie are so incredible.

I have to agree with the majority of the comments about FMJ: It's almost like two entirely separate movies, the first one which is great followed by the second which is _"meh, whatever"_. As a combat veteran, I was drawn in to both aspects of the movie, and I can tell you that drill instructors can definitely make your life miserable; and we had a couple of washouts in my boot camp (but fortunately, live rounds were much more difficult to come by) who couldn't hack the pressure. The second half was true-to-life as much as the movies can make it, but let's face it: nothing can really portray the horrors of war, or the 1000-yard stare that gets mentioned in here. The movie was great in its depiction of the ultimate apathy of a combat soldier, but apart from that, it really was nothing extraordinary. If there'd been any way they could have stretched out just the first part of this movie and made the whole "boot camp" sequence a story of its own, that could have taken home some Oscars, I do believe. The acting by R. Lee Ermy and Vincent D'Onofrio was acting, and I found the scene where Modine had to cover his ears - to block out the sound of D'Onofrio's crying - very emotionally stirring. Definitely worth watching...and even worth watching again.

An absolutely brilliant anti-war movie split in two parts that are both brilliant in their own way. Must see for all.

_Full Metal Jacket_ is an excellent war movie that leaves a lasting impact. It combines intense battle scenes with a deep exploration of the psychological and emotional struggles faced by soldiers during the Vietnam War. The film's portrayal of war is unapologetically realistic, and it doesn't shy away from showing the harsh realities of combat and the toll it takes on the human psyche. It masterfully captures the camaraderie and bonds formed between soldiers, as well as the mental and emotional challenges they endure. A must-watch classic for those who appreciate gritty realism and a thought-provoking narrative.

This is probably one of the best war movies of all times.