Full Metal Jacket Movie Review: 25 Years Ago This Month

Full Metal Jacket is the only war movie that has ever terrified me. When I was a kid it had virtually the same effect on me as a horror movie. That makes some sense if you think about it. What isn’t scary about war? Aren’t war movies that claim to be anti-war more than a bit disingenuous? Depicting the viscera of bodies blown apart or the heart pounding excitement of bullets flying turns war into entertainment. There’s almost no way around it. Once it’s been staged and committed to film you almost can’t avoid the accusation that you’re glorifying war.

Classic Movie Review: Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory

The boast of heraldry, the pomp of pow'r,

And all that beauty, all that wealth e'er gave,
Awaits alike th'inevitable hour.
The paths of glory lead but to the grave.

--“Elegy Written in a Country Courtyard” by Thomas Gray (1716 – 1771)

I can think of three significant cinematic uses of “La Marseillaise,” the French National Anthem. Its appearance in Casablanca is defiantly patriotic, induced by Victor Laszlo in Rick’s Café to drown out the singing Germans. It’s sung by the French crowd supporting the Allied prisoner football team at the end of John Huston’s Victory. But Stanley Kubrick is the only film maker to take what might be the most patriotic national hymn and turn it into an ironic statement about patriotic duty.