Full Metal Jacket

Good men don’t die in war, they die a long time before that. They just don’t know it. A scathing, gritty, beautiful critique of war, and more than that the war machine that dehumanises and destroys men, and leaves shells in their place. Everyone always talks about how good Pyle functions as a thesis character for the story, but I also adore how Animal Mother plays into it. He represents the most common and most dangerous of all killers, the ones who likely once were moral men. He’s noble in a way, even if he denies it he’s willing to stick his neck out for Doc and Eightball, and yet that loyalty and bond is also what causes his greatest evils: Wrath, is almost always what causes death. The hatred of what has been done to you, or to those you love, and the belief that the only way to “get payback” is by inflicting that pain one hundred fold. Pyle hated Joker for what he did yes, no doubt, but it was because of the drill sergeant, and so he kills him in cold blood. And Animal Mother lost Doc, Cowboy and Eightball to “the sniper” and believed “payback” was the only possible answer. Even seeing that this sniper is just a little girl doesn’t stop his wrath, his hatred, his will to kill. And he acknowledges that the reason for going to vietnam, the justification is stupid, and yet that doesn’t stop him. This is what they wanted to create, a killer. A free thinking killer, not a robot who kills out of lifeless and pragmatic intent, but one who kills out of passion. Pyle killed the drill sergeant out of passion, Animal Mother wanted to let the sniper die out of passion. And yet, Joker understands too late what this war is really about. It’s not about freedom, or reason, or defence or even hatred really, but because they want weapons.  Even if Pyle didn’t shoot the drill sergeant or himself, he wouldn’t have ever left the training camp. He was already dead. And so was everyone else, because they weren’t dehumanised in a way that made them lifeless, but merely in a way that’s not better than being lifeless, because they were turned into…animals, ironically enough.