Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as
Platoon and
The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London),
Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way,
Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of
2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death),
Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In
Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point.
--Tom Keogh
Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the
Vietnam War as
Platoon and
The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London),
Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's
2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way,
Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of
2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death),
Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In
Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point.
--Tom Keogh
Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 05/16/2006 Run time: 130 minutes Rating: Pg13
| Hoo-ray for Blu-ray | 2008-11-04 | 5 / 5 |
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| This film is very close to the nerve centers of practically all Marines because it so very realistically depicts their experiences in either boot camp and/or Vietnam. There isn't one that didn't feel a mysterious tingle in the back of his neck and a shiver down his spine when he first heard Lee Ermy calling cadence in the boot camp segment of the movie. Nuf said about the film except to say that the video and audio transfer to blu-ray is outstanding. The anamorphic treatment that allows it to fit 16X9 TVs is excellent. Makes it seem even more realistic. Buy It. |
| Excellent Blu-Ray! | 2008-11-03 | 5 / 5 |
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| This is an EXCELLENT Blu-Ray conversion of this classic Kubric movie, must see on Blu-Ray with the remastering 1080P quality and all the special features. Great buy! |
| One of the best war films of all time. | 2008-10-21 | 5 / 5 |
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Full Metal Jacket is one of the best, and most powerful war films of all time.
If you don't "get it", read the novel it was based on:
"The Short-Timers", by Gustav Hasford.
If you've read the book, you'll understand the way the movie seems to "jump" from one setting to the next, mentioned in other reviews here.
Short-Timers consists of three acts, "The Spirit of the Bayonet", "Body Count", and "Grunts." The first act is fairly accurately reproduced in the movie, but the second and third acts are combined, and the film loses some plot clarity as a result. In the book, you'll notice that the narative style begins in a simple, direct, and at times brutal manner, and becomes more introspective as the plot moves into the second and third parts ... while the main character, initially a passive observer, becomes increasingly involved. The movie reproduces this narative, enhanced by the imagery that is trademark Kubrick. You will be immersed in this film.
I'm by no means suggesting the ol' "the book was better" here ... this is a terrific film, and it stands on its own merits. However, for those who found the plot confusing ... read the book, you'll better understand the imagery of the film, the transformation of the central character, and why the film ends the way that it does. I can't help but wonder what this film might have looked like had Kubrick maintained the "three act" format of the book ...
Buy the film, you won't be disappointed. Buy Hasford's book as well, and you'll be back watching the film again several times over.
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| half good, half bad | 2008-10-06 | 3 / 5 |
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Full metal Jacket is really two movies in one. The first movie is a very realistic journey through the boot camp process for the marines. The reason why its so realistic is that Kubrick found a DI who could act and let the process run as if it were real. The only flaw in it is the murder-suicide at the end. Its just not realistic. It would have been more belevable as an ordinary suicide. The other thing that didn't quite catch is that DIs and the process don't just punish the weak. They go after the strong ones too.
The second half of the movie is worthless. The main character is suddenly made a journalist in Vietnam for a handful of pointless scences hanging around base and then just as suddenly is pushed into fighting in an infantry squad in Hue. All the realism of the early part of the film is lost. Suddenly we have Rambo running around with the big gun that never needs ammunition. We have marines advancing into a city of Hue that looks like Stalingrad. While Hue might have looked like this after the marines cleared the city, its kind of a major mistake to make it look like this BEFORE they cleared it. Everything about the "combat" scenes is wrong.
And what does everything build to. Pity for a female Vietnamese sniper. The leads spend more time whining, crying and acting like idiots over the sniper than they did over their own dead.
The only positive thing I can say about the second half the film is that its missing all the unrealistic "soldiers talk about the war" scenes that fill most every other movie about vietnam.
Watch the film for the first half and shut it off when they get to Vietnam.
As far as blu-ray goes, this film doesn't deserve it and doesn't benefit from it. It might as well have been on DVD.
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| more than satisfied | 2008-09-28 | 5 / 5 |
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| The movie came earlier than predicted. It came in brand new condition at an amazing price nowhere else I looked could even touch. R. Lee is amazing, and this movie is an instant favorite. The Bluray makes even the most shocking or violent scenes so clear and beautiful it's impossible to look away. I would definitely buy from this seller again. |
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