http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093058/
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A movie about the war in Vietnam - normally a load of garbage, but this was awesome. There was a whole lot of differences to the typical movie, the main one being the absence of whining for sympathy for the people involved. This one showed what was happening to a sufficient extent, but had the contributors to make it a enjoyable movie too.
ReplyDeleteThe most striking thing about the film was the type of humour used: all the wrong things, anything that could be offensive or inappropriate. The story was based on men talking among themselves, so the talk wasn't the cleanest possible, but the effect was good. The jokes were funny and the feel created by the director brought out the atmosphere I'd imagine ther is in the army and the war. A bit too sick and racist/sexist for some, but I think this was a perfect hit.
As for the plot and storyline, it was akwardly divided into two sections. The part at the camp had a different main character to the rest of the film and even in the second part, the character was ambiguous. That wouldn't be a problem if the characters didn't come and go and wouldn't be followed randomly. The first part was too long to serve as an introduction and too different to fit in.
Despite the unclear structure, the film was entertaining, not in the sense of telling a story, but by just having the hardcore humour in it. Only the climax proved a dissapointment; it was slow and not that funny - except for the 'Eightball' part. All in all, a success.
I liked it! I didn't really know what to expect, since the only picture I had of this film was that it was going to be a typical “boy” movie. Not that I have anything against those :p But actually it was better than I had expected!
ReplyDeleteEven though as Mikael said the plot was a bit weird, or seemed like the script had been done in a big rush, all the humor in it kind of compensated for that. And I liked
the fact that the whole movie was divided as Mikael said
“awkwardly” into two parts. At least it made the movie different from all the others that in the middle of the film the main character suddenly changed.
Something that I paid attention to as well was how well it was made even though it was filmed a long time ago! The colors and the quality were really good (maybe some nerd has a good explanation for this), soooo the movie must have had a pretty huge budjet, at least at that time. Yes, what happened twenty years ago is history.
Asiasta kukkaruukkun (how do you say that in English??) This movie made me want to watch the movie “Hair” which also discusses the war of Vietnam, but from a more hippy point of view. (A classic, shame on you if you have never heard of it)
Now, please please lets turn this whole thing more into a conversation! Comment about other people’s writings and feel free to ask questions!
- Do you think this film deserved to be nominated for an oscar?
Finally I have some time to write here.
ReplyDeleteI had watched the film about three years ago, and I was surprised again how much I had forgotten of it. I had a clear image of the movie before we began to watch it, but it proved to be wrong. I really liked it, more than I did the last time I watched it.
I have myself too pondered over the plot and the two parts of the movie. And, I cannot still figure out its full meaning. I think that the “first half” was the better one, it was much stronger, more entertaining, and it seemed to have more things to say. Only the over-acting ruined it for me a bit. The Drill instructor or whatever he was, was clearly the best character of the movie. Without him, the whole movie would have been much darker and somehow hopeless, despite the fact that his humour was “black as night and sweet as sin”.
The other half of the movie concentrates more on Private Joker and despite the over-acting (especially in the scene with Mother Animal), I liked him too. He always said he was born to kill, and his helmet stated the same. But he mixed this with the peace-sign to criticize and to show that the world is not all black and white. And when he had to shoot the poor little sniper, one could really see that he was not ready to kill, even if two of his friends were killed by this girl. Finally he shot the girl, showing seemingly no emotions (as the other soldiers said: “hardcore”), but the look in his eyes stated otherwise. Great acting, indeed.
The movie criticizes a lot of things, like racism, group pressure and maybe the army and war in general, but I won’t now get deeper in them.
And Anna, what comes to the quality of the picture and sound (the sound quality is really good, but as you heard and noticed, we had some problems on that), the film was “digitally remastered”, so the sound- and picture quality were improved digitally when it was converted on DVD. And I’m not a nerd, btw. ):
I personally see that the Oscar –awards are no kind of guarantee of the film’s quality. There are many great movies that have won or been nominated for Oscar, and many which haven’t. An example of a movie which won 7 Oscars, but still was one of the shittiest movies I’ve ever seen: Shakespeare in Love (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138097/). So, in short, I don’t see Oscars as any kind of measurement tool for how good a film is.
And for the ones who liked the Full Metal Jacket, you should definitely view Apocalypse Now (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078788/), it is too about the Vietnam War. And it certainly is something different, one of the best movies I’ve seen.
true. oscars suck, i wonder who gets to vote for them ... ?
ReplyDeleteAnd i completely agree, DON't EVER WATCH SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE xD
Right, time for my review. So this was an epic movie.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, I wasn't really sure I was going to like it, I've never been a big fan of war movies, becuase they usually have a terrible plot. This movie however, disproves that opinion.
As mentioned by other posts, this movie has roughly two parts. I love the first part. It shows the life of a bunch of army recruits, under the stereotypical drill instructer. It shows how this one little fatty gets psychologically broken down, to an extent were he kills the drill sargent and then himself. What a lovely way to portray the brutality of army training, this movie takes a rather dark yet humourus stance on the subject.
The second half shows what happens to one of the non psychologically raped trainees, joker. He goes off to fight in vietnam. I thought the transition between these two parts was terrible, since they just kind of skip into each other, but maybe that's just me. This part doesn't really have a plot, instead it just seems to focus on showing us small yet significant moral dilemas that war gives the soliders, such as prostitution, apathy towards the foreign citizens they are trying to help by killing and pillaging their land, and murdering a young female sniper. This part wasn't very original, but the humour made up for it. Also, I personally thought the acting became a little worse in this part, or maybe thats just how people act in war. I don't know.
All in all, it was a wonderful movie to watch.It really gave us a darker, unapologetic perspective on the horrors of becoming and living as a soldier.
I was surprised that a film so old, was actually very good. I liked the way the director (or whoever is responsible for this) approaches this historical event. It was everything else than Rambo(s), which I like as an action movie(s), but hate in general.
ReplyDeleteAs I said before, I was pleased to see that this is not any kind of American-hero-saves-the-world- film, but instead it gave a more realistic picture of the war.
The sudden change of the protagonist and the division of the film into two completely different stories confused me, but later on I found out that there would be no point in making a film about the overweight guy's experience at the battlefield. I think that the first part (the Marine Corps training facility) was very critical. I had the impression that that American way of training soldiers is a very misguided one. It doesnt fit work for all, as could be seen from the movie. However, the film also showed that if the person has already a large self-esteem, such as Animal, that kind of training will just blow him full of confidence and perhaps even overconfidence.
The ending of the film was not what I expected. After all the dramatization and criticism towards war, the protagonists start marching and singing with a victorious, joyful tone. I just found that completely weird.
The humour in the film was absolutely great. I think it was a good way of getting the attention of the watcher, because due to the jokes, the events became interesting. So in a way, the jokes were used in my opinion to make the watcher want to know what happen, and therefore he would watch the film with large expectations.
Again, Ill say that this was a very good movie. I liked it a lot, and I could say it is one of the best movies I have seen. 9/10 for this one.
Quite a novel O.o
I’ve seen this piece of art once and to be honest it was better that time. I’m still saying it’s definitely one of the best Vietnam movies ever made. I agree with Jere that for something new watch Apocalypse Now. And I warn you guys, because whatever you’ve heard about Deer Hunting, don’t expect too much from it. And no, I’m not a war freak.
ReplyDeleteBut back to business and straight to the thing. The structure of the movie was interesting. It was clearly divided into two parts, both having their own stories to tell. I personally liked the second part as the better one. At least that was what I was waiting for. It was odd how there was like two stories inside one frame, with own separate rising action and climaxes. Interesting pick for the director, which worked this time. The humour used was first funny, but now thinking back it just went over the top. I wasn’t offended by it but someone might be.
The movie really showed the madness of the war. But still I know there’s loads of people that see only the “cool let’s kill some more” –point of view. This movie wasn’t for rising up the spirit to go and fight another war. But still it had some elements towards the idea that war is great. The thing is that it wouldn’t sell without these elements. It’s up to the viewer to make own interpretations of the message.
The Full Metal Jacket tells a story of US soldiers. Still it’s not only for American viewers. People all over the globe can learn from this movie. Get some more understanding to questions concerning Vietnam War.
All in all worth of watching.
Aagghhhh! I just spent about 15 minutes typing up a review but then the world decided to gang up on me and it disappeared. I'll try rewrite as much of it as I cna remember.
ReplyDeleteOkay, so I think this movie was really great.
The first part focused on the lives of the recruits in the training camp, and it kind of criticises the US army. I mean, Pyle is so broken down by the drill sergeant and the training routines that he shoots the sergeant and then commits suicide. It also brings out peer pressure and bullying, like in the scene when all the recruits gang up on Pyle and beat him up in the middle of the night. Pyle is also the main target of the sergeants wrath. He's also used in a pretty clever way by the sergeant: whenever Pyle does something wrong, the other recruits are punished for it. This deflects the recruits' hatred for the sergeant towards Pyle.
The one thing I really didn't like was the transition between the two parts. There was barely any connection between the two, and I think that the unexpectedness and the fairly large gap in time ruined it a bit.
Anyway, I think the second part was more humourous thatn the first. It focuses mainly on Joker. I love the way Joker is all tough and apparently "ready" for the war and going out onto the front and whatnot, but in the end it's really obvious that he wasn't ready to kill. This is kind of illustrated by the fact that he had "born to kill" written on his helmet but he still wears a peace sign on his jacket. He actually gets criticised for this in the movie by officers.
Another thing the movie portrays in the second part is the way people can get desensitised to extreme conditions such as war. When Joker kills the Vietnamese sniper girl you can see that he isn't ready for it, because he hesitates for ages before actually killing her, even though she's begging to die. The other soldiers don't really seem to notice this though, because they're actually impressed by the way Joker seems so cold-blooded and composed. And then, right after this, you get this scene of soldiers walking along in a burning ruined city singing this really cheerful Mickey Mouse song. The movie really shows the absurdity and madness of war in that contrast between the two scenes.
I could go on and on about this movie, but I guess it's slightly pointless. I'm sure we can all agree about how great this movie is :)
(nicholas Nikkinen)
ReplyDeleteI´m in a rush right now since it's late and I'm being kicked out of the library.
Okay so:
I thought this movie, Full Metal Jacket, was fantastic. The portrayal of the American army, although cruel, racist, and biggoted, is correct to some extent. The whole yelling aspect is used to train the soildiers to efar and recognize authority.
The build up to the suicide scene was also very well done. It was sad to see Lawrence (the suicide guy) struggle in the military since it, in the end, came at the cost of his whole squad. Whenever he messed up, they emssed up. The sqaud decided to reciprocate and they all beat him with soap bars wrapped in towels.
It was very interesting to watch as Lawrence slowly cracked and ended his torture by killing the squad leader and himself. I do pity him, but he definitely did not tact the sane route out of his dilemma.
The depiction of the Vietnam War was also very interesting, even thought it came mainly through the eyes of the protagonist, a military journalist. Even though a few aspects were a bit racist, it was still a very enjoyable aspect of the movies
To conclude this sad attempt at a comment, I'll just once again say what a great movie this was; I'd definitely watch it again :D