Full Metal Jacket

Last night I was at my friend’s house and between several movies available to watch, we chose Full Metal Jacket. Even though this movie is quite old and very recognizable, I have never seen it to the end. I have watched it a couple of dozen times till yesterday, but I kept shutting the movie down after the first part - the training on the Island. After the shooting scene in the Head, ti was just to damn nasty to carry on. But, yesterday I finally did and I have to say - it was worth it.

The second part of the movie is absolutely brilliant - it shows why this movie is considered the best war movie ever even though there aren’t that many war strategies discussed, there isn’t that many events and movement. It’s all about a group of Marines in Vietnam who are advancing (?) without any disclosed reason, without any known purpose except to kill. And to kill. 

To me, the most impressive scene in the movie is the one where the sniper “guy” starts shooting them down one by one, after the group loses its leader, they lose the replacing leader and then a third guy in executive line steps in. He tries to be authoritative and tries to act like a leader to he rest of the group but can’t cause the group just isn’t listening him. They scatter around, every single one with his own thoughts of handling the situation. It’s classic management chaos scenario - who’s in charge? Pure awesome.

Even though there are a number of other thoughts I could share today (about the sense of war in general and the goals that were obviously not known to the soldiers back then), the one with the management crisis in the group is the one I picked. 

All in all, Full Metal Jacket is brilliant, through the humorous first half and the depiction of Marine training and high class discipline to the second half of just meaningless slaughter and description of just pointless war. It’s a must-watch for anyone and I recommend it fully! 

PS - There are a number of analysis on the movie, I like this one so be my guest and read it. :)

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Written on December 30th, 2011 by Marko Srsan