Obscure Movie Characters We Like: Animal Mother in Full Metal Jacket

Animal Mother

There’s a lot of debate as to which the best Vietnam movie is.  You’ve got Platoon, Apocalypse Now, Born on the 4th of July, Full Metal Jacket, and The Deer Hunter.  I would say those quality as the top and if I’m missing one I am sorry but honestly if you’re thinking Vietnam movies do you ever leave one of these out?  Surely not.

And of all those movies I think Full Metal Jacket does a fantastic job of explaining the psychotic mental nature of the war.  Granted all the films have their craziness and show “what war can do to a man,” but FMJ perhaps does this a bit better than the rest.  From Private Pile’s suicide to the nutty music and characters we see later on, I’m a huge fan of this movie.

One of the best examples of the psychotic nature I was speaking about is the character “Animal Mother” who is played by Adam Baldwin.  He’s just a big, mean, scary, insane soldier who doesn’t care about killing and really doesn’t care about anything.  He’s a true example of someone who just “let’s go” and allows the war to take over his psyche.

Kudos to Stanley Kubrick for having a character like this and a job well done by Baldwin who is a very underrated actor in his own right.

“Ya Seen much Combat?”

“Do ya walk the walk?”

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6 Comments

  1. He’s had some awesome movie roles over the years!
    I’m especially enjoying his role in Chuck.

    Funny enough, apparently he is a lot like his character? Very pro-Reagan, anti-“save the planet sissies” etc. 🙂

  2. This description of Animal Mother is inaccurate. Animal Mother doesn’t not care about anything. If he didn’t care about anything, he wouldn’t have gone after the dying marines that were shot by the sniper at the end of the movie. Keep in mind he disobeyed Cowboy’s orders to just move on. Animal Mother cares

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