Among the many acts of misogyny undertaken by the young men training to become US marines in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket is the edict for each of them to give their gun a woman's name.
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This results in the M16 rifles being lugged about the film's Parris Island boot camp of 1967 being called "Charlene" or "Betty" (these days? "Charlotte?" ... "Maddi?")
The buzz-cutted recruits training to fight in Vietnam are also made to march along chanting: "This is my rifle, this is my gun; this is for fighting, this is for fun" while intermittently clutching their genitals with metronomic and mesmerising cadence.
Kubrick's 1987 movie, while far from his best work, still stands an exemplar of what can be achieved through the employment of irony and satire when sending a particular message.
Thirty-five years later, no such subtlety can be found among the clenched jaws and thousand-mile stares of The Terminal List, now streaming on Amazon Prime.
We do, however, still have guns with names.
One of them belongs to our hero, Lieutenant Commander James Reece, played by Chris Pratt.
Commander Reece's gun isn't called Betty or Beyonce, it's called LCDR JAMES REECE.
The name is etched along its barrel, an unfortunate happenstance of pride and possession given the sidearm serves as a pretty compelling smoking gun in an investigation into the deaths of several innocent people.
Apart from its eponymous nature, we also know this is a special weapon to Commander Reece because he doesn't store it in the big gun safe with 150 other guns in his macho (and highly organised) man cave, he keeps this one in the little gun safe next to his bed.
This is not to suggest Commander Reece - a US Navy SEAL - is cavalier with gun safety. The metal box in the bedroom of his family home is so high-tech and secure, it can only be opened with a fingerprint, so, again, from an investigative point of view, it's rather unfortunate the gun was somehow removed from this facility of biometric infallibility and used in a killing spree.
This leaves us in a quandary. Is Commander Reece a loose cannon with homicidal mental issues sparked by the PTSD of a failed mission? Or is he being set up by the big, bad military industrial complex for which, up until recently, he was a willing and highly trained attack dog? (Incidentally, an actual highly trained dog in this show wears a mask which makes it look like a canine Hannibal Lecter).
No spoilers as to which side of the ledger (written, in this case, on the back a child's naive family portrait) Commander Reece lands but suffice it to say, it's not long before we're on a journey of bloody revenge.
There is, understandably, next to no fun to be had in this slog of male bravado based on the book by real-life Navy SEAL turned author Jack Carr, which is part of the reason it seems so strange Pratt should want to be a part of such a dour project (a project for which he is reportedly highly passionate).
Pratt has proven most watchable in his transformation from Parks and Recreation slacker-slob to the wise-cracking action hero of the Marvel and Jurassic universes. It's been the smarm and the charm which have turned him into a bankable star but devoid of these elements (and associated scripts) he looks decidedly pedestrian. In Amazon Prime's shamelessly derivative The Tomorrow War, Pratt was far closer tonally to what he's become in The Terminal List. Amid the close-magic misdirection of aliens (seriously, just blow them up) and lazy time paradoxes, Pratt was able to slide by without being made, well, boring, but this time, we're left with not much else than a goon with a labelled gun and some truly awful dialogue.
Just how awful?
Try Eyes on the horizon, boys.
Or I have 12 men flying home in caskets right now.
Or, if you prefer, I got you , bro, I got you!
All this leaves us in another quandary.
How is it possible, after Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, after Coppola's Apocalypse Now; after Aliens, after Platoon; after Deer Hunter and First Blood and Top Gun, we're still wallowing in this crud?
Sure, there are still legitimate and compelling stories to be explored in the world of warcraft and this one tries so very hard to engage us in something worthy about good men being forsaken but are we really expected to swallow this tripe? (Tripe, mind you, drawn out over eight episodes).
Maybe, maybe not.
READ MORE:
It's back in Commander Reece's OCD man cave there may be glimpses of irony but post-Trump America, post Capitol riot, it's really hard to tell.
Is the (genuine) military banner in the background which reads The only easy day was yesterday a Kubrick-esque comment on the brainwashing of troops sent to monster people in other countries?
Is the sticker (This is my peace symbol) on the gun safe featuring crosshairs some sort of seditious comment on America's gun laws?
That sticker is weirdly redolent of the peace button Matthew Modine's "Joker" wears on his body armour in Full Metal Jacket. He also wears a helmet upon which he's written "Born to kill" and he has a hard time trying to explain the juxtaposition to an incredulous superior played by the wonderful Bruce Boa (the American guest in the Waldorf salad episode of Fawlty Towers).
"What's that supposed to be? Some kind of sick joke?"
"I think I was trying to suggest something about the duality of man, sir!"
"The what?"
Indeed.
