Full Metal Jacket (1987)

[Daniel Johnson]

   Just watched this for the first time in it's entirety and enjoyed it thoroughly. Very facisnating look into the world of warfare and as Pvt. Joker says in onescene "the duelity of man". Anyway my question for my fellow posters is how would you rate it, as compared to some other movies based on Vietnam such as Platoon and Apocalypse Now and what are some of your favorite portions of the film?

[Mr_Vindictive]

FMJ is by far one of my favorite war movies.

It's a beautiful yet dark look at our America at that time and the true insanity of war.  One of my favorite scenes is the scene where the soldier is shooting at the innocents from the copter.  As I said before, the true insanity of war.


"GET SOME!"

[Ash]

The boot camp scenes with R. Lee Ermey are by far the best.
FMJ has some of the most colorful and memorable dialogue I've ever heard.
Everytime I hear, "Whadda we get for ten dollars?"
"Everyting  you wan."
"Everything?"
"Everyting!"
I always think of 2 Live Crew.


After the boot camp scenes I felt that the film faltered quite a bit.
I lost a lot of interest once the men go to Vietnam.

[Susan]

I love this film, I always found the ending interesting in the revelation of their sniper. Because we often have this image of the enemy as evil and larger than life, we see the cold calculated acts against us but fail to see it the other way. We're all chess pieces. The movie itself was good because it felt long, like there are 3 chapters to a story.  Also kubrick had a great sense of drawing out suspense not only through his lense but in the music/sound effects.

[Conrad]

Cracking film - R Lee Ermey is frightening and funny in equal amounts.  Nice to see a Vietnam film that *wasn't* filmed in the jungle/Phillipines - London Docklands, actually.  The scene where the Marines verrrrry cautiously approach Dogpatch through smoke and mist is my favourite - everyone treading on eggshells, eyes going in all directions.  And the commentary written by Michael Herr.

[The Burgomaster]

Boot camp sequences - 4 stars (out of 4); excellent;
Remainder of the movie - 3 stars (out of 4): good.

Unfortunately, the movie started out TOO GOOD, so the 2nd half had a hard time living up to the 1st half.

Overall, it is probably in my top 100 - 150 movies of all time.

[Gecko Brothers]

The boot camp was the reason to watch it. Like the infamous helicopter scene in Apocolypse Now. It is one of the main attraction of the movie. After that set of events we move to Vietnam. It is pretty interesting watching the soldiers doing what they do during their spare time. We get a great scene in which Joker tries to explane his button and helmet. The end was pretty good. It kept me interested to see the end. Now I have the Mickey Mouse song stuck in my head.

Isn't the boot camp sequence also a little heavily spoofed. I saw a Johnny Bravo cartoon where Johnny goes to Book Camp by accident. I saw another spoof in Hot Shots with Charlie Sheen, I also this stupid spoof of it for some type of microshaver where the drill instructor screams at people for having ear hair *ewww* It ends with them saying the gun prayer only about  a microshaver. Also didn't this film practically started the whole boot camp obsession?

[Ash]

I guess one bad thing about it was that R. Lee Ermey was forever typecast as a military drill sgt.

In nearly every film he's starred in after FMJ he's played a screaming military man.

[ulthar]

ASHTHECAT wrote:

> I guess one bad thing about it was that R. Lee Ermey was
> forever typecast as a military drill sgt.
>
> In nearly every film he's starred in after FMJ he's played a
> screaming military man.

He *WAS* a USMC sgt.  He got that role in FMJ cuz he was on the set to 'coach' the actor playing Hartman, and, well, I guess he was more 'believable.' That's also probably why he plays that type of character so well.

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000388/bio

FMJ was not the first movie he played a Marine Sgt, or even a drill sergeant, in.  His first movie credit was 'The Boys in Company C' in 1978.



Post Edited (06-30-04 22:19)

[ulthar]

Daniel Johnson wrote:

> how would you
> rate it, as compared to some other movies based on Vietnam such
> as Platoon and Apocalypse Now and what are some of your
> favorite portions of the film?

First of all, I really dislike PLATOON.  I think it was O. Stone's wet dream of a Vietnam movie, but I just don't like it (and probably will never own it).  Vietnam movies I do like include (and I do have all of these):

FMJ
Apocolypse Now
Hamburger Hill
Purple Hearts (yes, yes, I know).

R. Lee Ermey is in three of these, btw.

I like FMJ the first time I saw it, though like the other posters, I think it went downhill after the bootcamp sequence.  

I also find it interesting that FMJ is one of the few Vietnam movies you see that the main 'war' sequences take place in a city, rather than the stereotypical jungle/rice patties of most of them.

Matthew Modine remains one of my favorite actors; there are few movies in which I've seen him that I did not enjoy.  He plays these kinds of characters  in 'brainy' films very well, imo (anybody seen Equinox?  that's a pretty weird movie with Modine playing twins who have never met).

Still in all, though, I find the climatic bathroom scene in FMJ difficult to watch anymore.  I'll admit, it is a very powerful scene that sticks with you.

[SadClown]

I would have to say that my favorite part of the entire movie(i am such a perv) would have to be where the vietnamese hooker agrees to have sex with the whole platoon for a small amount of money however she refused to have "relations" with the black man in the group... "Too Boo-ku" haahhahhahaaa... classic

[Conrad]

He got the part, allegedly, by swearing in front of the director for two or three minutes, non-stop, without repeating himself.

He plays the wilfully ignorant mayor in "Missisipi Burning", for once not in uniform

[Yaddo42]

R. Lee Ermey also plays his drill instructor role in the mostly mediocre "Boys In Company C", his first acting role apparently.

But the guy isn't as typecast as I once thought. Yes he plays lots of military men, cops, nasty bosses, and the occasional overbearing "drill sergeant wannabe" coach, but he's also had  small interesting roles like the grieving father-in-law to Val Kilmer in "The Salton Sea" (yet another reason to seek out this underrated film) and playing an over the top film director/"recovered" drug addict in several episodes of the short-lived series "Action". Comedy Central occasionally plays mini marathons of this show on weekends and late at night, again worth seeking out. Glad to know from roles like the second one, some of his voice work in animated films, his talk show appearances, and his hosting duties on "Mail Call" that the man has a good sense of humor about himself and his image.

I just hate to see the man in crap roles like in the limp Western with an (obvious) plot twist, "Jericho". He does a good job with a small role, but he's so much better than the rest of the film.

[ulthar]

Conrad wrote:

> He got the part, allegedly, by swearing in front of the
> director for two or three minutes, non-stop, without repeating
> himself.
>

Anyone happen to know how many of his lines in FMJ were scripted vs. him just 'being a Marine?'  I always wondered that, and in my mind, assumed that he at least had a LOT of leeway with that role.  Some of the stuff he did, I don't think one could really 'write,' as it really did seem off the cuff.

[Ash]

"Whadda we got here a f**king comedian, Private Joker."
"Hell, I like you...you can come over to my house and f**k my sister!"
BAM!! (hits guy in the gut)