Full Metal Jacket

FULL METAL JACKET

FILM DATA

Based on: The Short-Timersi by Gustav Hasford

Release Dates: June 26, 1987 (US) September 11, 1987 (UK)

Running Time: 116 minutes

Budget: $30 Million

Box Office: $46.4 million

Distributed by: Warner Bros (US) Columbia-Cannon-Warner (UK)

Music by: Abigail Mead (aka Vivian Kubrick, Stanley’s daughter)

Cinematography: Douglas Milsome

Edited by: Martin Hunter

Starring: Matthew Modine as James T. “Joker” Davis & narrator

            Adam Baldwin as Sergeant “Animal Mother”

            Vincent D’Onofrio as Private Leonard “Gomer Pyle” Lawrence

            Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman

            Dorian Harewood as Corporal “Eightball”

            Arliss Howard as Private/Sergeant Robert “Cowboy” Evans

Kevyn Major Howard as Private First Class “Rafterman”

            Ed O’Ross as Lieutenant Walter J. “Touchdown” Schinoski

Cast: John Terry as Lieutenant Lockhart

            Keiron Jecchinis as Sergeant “Crazy Earl”

            John Stafford as Doc Jay

            Peter Edmund as Private “Snowball” Brown

             

SYNOPSIS

            During the Vietnam war, a group of Marine recruits arrive to Parris Island, South Carolina, for basic training. They all have their heads shaved and are introduced to Senior Drill Instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman. Overweight Leonard Lawrence automatically gets on Hartman’s bad side and gets the nickname “Gomer Pyle.” Pyle does not seem to be able to follow Hartman’s discipline and is paired with recruit “Joker” so that he can help him. Joker tries to help Pyle and begins to care about him but all of that ends when Hartman finds a jelly doughnut in Pyle’s locker.

            Hartman adopts a new punishment policy that when every time Pyle makes a mistake, the whole team will be punished except for Pyle. The team is clearly upset as Pyle keeps making mistakes so they tie him to his bed and beat him with bars of soap wrapped in towels. Because of this incident, Pyle changes his ways and tries to become a model Marine, which impressed Hartman. Joker is not convinced and is nervous for Pyle’s well-being as he overhead him talking to his rifle.

            The group graduates and receive their Military assignments where Joker is assigned to Basic Military Journalism and most of the others are assigned to Infantry. But during their final night, Joker finds Pyle in the bathroom loading his rifle. Joker immediately tried to calm Pyle down, knowing what is coming, but Pyle is long gone and executes drill commands and recites the Rifleman’s Creed. Hartman confronts them both and Pyle shoots him dead and then proceeds to kill himself.

            The following year, the movie turns to Joker, who is now a corporal and war correspondent in South Vietnam with Private First Class Rafterman as a combat photographer. While being mocked for his lack of war experience, Joker and the rest of his group are interrupted as the North Vietnamese Army attempts to overrun the base. The next day, the journalism staff is briefed about the attacks and Joker and Rafterman are sent to Phu Bai where they meet Cowboy’s squad. Joker accompanies the squad into the next battle where old friend “Touchdown” is killed by the enemy.

            Later, Crazy Earl the squad leader is killed by a booby trap during patrol, which leaves Cowboy in command. Cowboy quickly ordered Eightball to scout the area to find the rest of the squad but he too is wounded by a Viet sniper. His medic is wounded trying to help Cowboy and both are killed when Doc Jay tries to give his team the sniper’s location. Cowboy is shot and killed while trying to get to the sniper.

           Many deaths later, Animal Mother takes over command and he leads an attack on the sniper, with Joker and Rafterman included. Joker attempts to shoot the teenage girl sniper but his gun jams and Rafterman shoots her instead, wounding her. The attack then becomes an ethical dilemma as she is a young girl but Animal Mother allows a mercy killing only if Joker does it and he eventually does, after some thought.

            Joker is congratulated as he has finally gained some real war experience but he doesn’t feel elated and says that “in a world of shit” he is happy to be alive.

COMMENTARY: REFLECTION

            Eyes Wide Shut is a 1987 war film based on Agustac Hasford’s 1979 novel Short-Timers. The film was on a limited and slow release starting with 215 theaters on June 26, 1987. Its opening weekend grossed over $2 million and about 2 weeks later and many more theaters added, it had a total gross of over $46 million. Reviewers enjoyed the film and the casting but some were critical of the end of the film set in Vietnam as they felt that the moral message was “muddled.”

            Full Metal Jacket was nominated for many awards including BAFTA Best Sound and Best Special Effects, Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and Writers Guild of America Best Adapted Screenplay. Stanely Kubrick and his film also won many awards including London Critics Circle Film Awards Director of the Year, Boston Society of Film Critics Awards Best Director, and Kinema Junpo Awards Best Foreign Language Film Director.

            The most prevalent theme of the film is the brainwashing down by the military, which is popular among war films. This is most well seen through the eyes of Pyle, who came into this because his father indirectly made him, struggled at first but ultimately made his Senior Drill Sergeant very proud but ended up killing himself anyway.