10 War Movie Moments You'll Never Forget
5. Pyle Self-Destructs - Full Metal Jacket
Stanley Kubrick was a master satirist. Between Dr. Strangelove and Full Metal Jacket, the director made acute incisions into the ludicrous nature of Cold War confrontation and the debilitating process of armed conflict. Strangelove skews more towards comedy, sure, but Full Metal Jacket isn't so different, achieving similar results through stark depictions of combat that, in a way, highlight the absurd nature of war - particularly the Vietnam War - as a concept.
Whereas Strangelove was mostly concerned with the absurdity of nuclear armageddon, Full Metal Jacket is all about the dehumanising nature of warfare and the mental trauma nations impose in transforming men into killers. Some, like R. Lee Ermey's Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, commit fully to the idea of being a monster. Others, like Private Joker, compartmentalise the transformation with irony and humour. And then there are those who are destroyed by the process - the Private Pyles of the world, who go into boot camp and come out the other end detached, violent, and with no safety net (if they even make it out at all).
Vincent D'Onofrio's performance as the young Pyle in Full Metal Jacket is a cherished example from the actor's career. A supremely talented individual, D'Onofrio found the heart of the character and made his downfall heartbreaking. Pyle enters the film fairly anonymously, but is soon picked on by Hartman as his special project - a person to destroy in order to make a marine who is capable of living and killing in Vietnam.
There are multiple horrifying moments in Pyle's decline, but the moment that it is crystalised is undoubtedly Full Metal Jacket's most enduring legacy. D'Onofrio wears the "Kubrick Stare" so well as a man who may as well be nothing more than a gun, killing Hartman and then himself after enduring a process few films have reckoned with in such scathing fashion.