FILM Review Drive & Full Metal Jacket PDF

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This is a film review of the movies Drive and Full Metal Jacket....

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Film Review

Drive (2011) and Full Metal Jacket (1987) The first movie, Drive, is an action drama film, which tells the story of a person only known as “The Driver”, who is a mechanic, a stunt double and stunt actor, and, secretly, a criminal-for-hire getaway driver for criminals in Los Angeles. He lives a somewhat “grey life” until he meets his new nextdoor neighbors, Irene and her son Benicio. What started out as a simple help turned into a blooming relationship between the Driver and Irene, and the forming bond between the Driver and Benicio. The Driver begins to bond with the two, while also maintaining his criminal background. This shatters when Irene’s husband, Standard Gabriel, gets released from prison, who now needs to pay protection money to the Albanian mafia, who protected him whilst in prison. As a form of warning, Albanian gangsters burst into their home and assaults Standard Gabriel, as well as forcing his son to pocket a bullet as a sign that their family is in danger unless they pay the debt. Upon learning of this incident, the Driver agrees to participate in Standard Gabriel’s plan to accumulate the money: by robbing the pawnshop. This spirals out of control and leads to Standard Gabriel’s death, which sort of devastates the Driver not out of his gruesome death, but because of what he left behind: his family. Now getting entangled between a potential war between the Albanian mafia and the East Coast mafia,

who was protecting the pawnshop, the Driver must now make a choice: continue on with his criminal life as a getaway driver, or start defending the only two people that he has grown to love: Irene and Benicio. He makes the choice of taking the mantle of defending Irene and Benicio from the mobsters: he even beat up a hitman who was supposed to kill Irene and Benicio as well as the Driver infront of Irene, which horrifies her. The Driver then makes a heavy choice: to finally get rid of those who planned this failed robbery in the first place. He makes this choice because he knows that while he cannot leave the criminal life, Irene and Benicio can still live a peaceful life away from harm. He kills the ringleaders of this robbery, and then calls Irene telling her that both her and Benicio were the best part of his life, and that he will not return. After killing the last member of the ring of conspirators, he drives into the night. The second movie, Full Metal Jacket, is a war film made by Stanley Kubbrick. It tells the story of J.T. Davis, nicknamed “The Joker” in the film. He along with many other recruits were sent to bootcamp under the supervision of the ruthless Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, who believes that by employing harsh methods upon the training of his recruits, they can turn untrained rabble into combat-ready Marines, prepared to meet the traumas of war without breaking down. There is also another character to note, Private Pyle, who is a recruit like Private Joker. While Private Joker is seen as a potential leader by the Sergeant, Private Pyle is seen as a sort of dumb, childlike, dim-witted, and overweight who has no place in the marines. They undergo rigorous training and intense punishments by the Sergeant: when Private Pyle was caught hiding a jelly donut in his case, instead of punishing Private Pyle, the Sergeant instead punishes the whole squad for “failing to properly train” Private Pyle. This causes the Private Pyle to be bullied nonstop, to which Private Joker reluctantly participates. This bullying causes Private Pyle to somehow reinvent himself into a model marine. But problem begins to arise. While Sergeant Hartman sees the change of Private Pyle as a miracle, Private Joker sees something wrong with Private Pyle, and it was proven true when one night Private Pyle takes his rifle and when Sergeant Hartman berates Pyle because he would not surrender his rifle, Pyle shoots Hartman and commits suicide. This event scars all of the recruits in the squad. Joker, by now a Sergeant, serves as a military journalist which documents the day-to-day combat operations of the United States Marines during the Vietnam War. He is constantly bullied by the Marines for not being a real soldier, instead being seen as a journalist with military attire, and for not having his own “thousand yard stare”, where marines stare into nothingness, while bombs and killings happen around him: it is basically how soldiers are now detached to what is happening around them and instead focuses on doing their mission. This is kind of like PTSD. But regardless, Sergeant Joker continues on with his job and is attached to various units until he is sent to the Battle of Hue where they are kind of overran. So this time he has to ditch his

camera for a weapon, and engages in combat with various Vietnamese soldiers. They attempt to link up with the other forces when they are struck by a Vietnamese sniper, who turns out to be a teenage girl. They mortally wound the girl, who then begs to be executed as a mercy. The squad leader tells the squad that mercy killing will be allowed only if Sergeant Joker performs the execution. With no other choice, Sergeant Joker kills the girl, to the amusement of the soldiers. Joker has now achieved his “thousand yard stare” by killing the girl. The movie then ends with the United States soldiers singing the “Mickey Mouse March” while marching thru the devastated city of Hue, which is a symbolic scene because during the Vietnam War, 18 year olds who were fresh out of high school were drafted to serve in the war. By singing the Mickey Mouse March, they are desperately holding onto the last bit of innocence that they have by singing something that was from their childhood, because they know that they have lost it forever and they will never be the same again after the war. Joker states via narration that while life is full of “shit”, he is still glad that he is alive. The two movie’s major values is that there is a special event; something or someone that will change our lives forever, for good or for the worse. In the first movie, Irene and Benicio changed the Driver’s life which was bleak and full of criminal acts into finally being able to love and being loved back, without the need to hurt or kill someone for it. This movie is best summed up with one of the movie’s song, “A Real Hero” by Electric Youth. He made the heavy choice of protecting those he loved very much by dealing with the cause of the problem: by taking out those who planned the robbery, and by taking himself out of the lives of Irene and Benicio. Let me explain. By the end of the film, the Driver realizes that he cannot and will not have a normal life, and decides that by at least leaving Irene and Benicio, he will know that they will be safe and away from harm that surrounds him. In this situation, it was better to let go than to hold onto the relationship which will only harm those in it. In the second movie, being drafted into the marines, seeing the death of their fellow comrade through suicide, and the wanton killing of civilians drove the characters to loosing their last vestiges of innocence. Joker made the decision to finally be eaten alive by the war and does something that he resented to do: killing people. By doing this, he has now become something that he has sworn to not become. He was only supposed to be a war journalist, not a fighter....