It’s impossible not to think of military training camp staples such as “Full Metal Jacket” and “An Officer and a Gentlemen” when experiencing writer-director Elegance Bratton’s semi-autobiographical “The Inspection.” While Bratton’s film isn’t in the same league as those classics, it’s a strong and memorable if predictable boot-camp journey that features many of the same elements of the first half of “Jacket” and the entirety of “Gentleman” — most notably in that all three films feature an alpha male drill instructor who will either defeat his recruits and send them home, or turn them into lean mean fighting machines.
What makes “Inspection” unique is that its troubled but determined recruit is a 25-year-old gay man who by his own admission has wandered without direction through life for the last many years and has joined the Marines during the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” era in 2005 as a last-ditch effort to make something of himself and find a purpose in this world.
