Full Metal Jacket (1987)

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Writers: Stanley Kubrick, Michael Herr, Gustav Hasford
Starring: Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood, Kevyn Major Howard

I have always found the theme of the movie to revolve round Joker's statement regarding the "duality of man." He wears a peace symbol on his body armor while "Born to Kill" is written on his helmet. The entire film is a study in duality. The film is divided into two distinct halves, each its own story including an exposition, a climax, and a dénouement. The characters themselves, especially upon arrival in Vietnam, are almost bipolar; they are trained killers on one hand, but the harshness of boot camp and the war has not completely removed from them their sense of humanity and camaraderie, though we see glimpses of lost sanity including a scene where the corpse of a Vietnamese soldier is the "guest of honor" at a party. Even Animal Mother, the gung-ho, M-60 wielding, shoot anything that moves (or doesn't), vicious killer foregoes his own safety and concern for self above all else that he displayed earlier in the film to rescue fallen Marines who have become victims of the sniper. The score too plays a part in this case study. Upbeat, hip tunes of the 1960s play over the more agreeable and lighter moments in the film, but an industrial sounding, heavy, creepy, metallic sounding score foreshadows scenes of impending peril. The film ends as Marines walk out of the city where they have seen dozens of their friends killed singing the Mickey Mouse Club song, reverting to a childlike sense of indifference or mentally blocking the death and destruction they are leaving behind. This film is a masterpiece on so many levels, everything about it is right. Many Marines have commented that this film, above all others, most accurately represents what life in the Marine Corps and in war is all about. No film could garner higher praise than that.

Full Metal Jacket Audio Commentary: Together, author/screenwriter Jay Cocks and actors Adam Baldwin, Vincent D'onofrio and Lee Ermey would have been a formidable platoon of steely eyed commentators. Recorded separately though, they never really gel as a unit. Nor do their reflections on the film or its director. Worse, like their characters, D'onofrio and Ermey disappear at the halfway point. Still, it's a passable commentary worth sampling, even if only during Full Metal Jacket's boot camp sequences.MS-WAR, MS-VTNM-WAR

Please Note: Playback of this H.265/HEVC encoded video file in VLC media player may cause problem (like Green Screen). A fresh install of the player or a new version can solve this problem. I strongly suggest you to download and install "K-Lite Codec Pack (Full or Mega version; totally free with WMP Classic)" on your system first and then try to play the file in VLC. Or, you can just install PotPlayer, and no codecs will be needed. I use this player for playing all sorts of media… from MP3 audio files to 4K UHD video files.MS-WRMVHW

Mac users please get help from the Internet and YouTube.