Brilliantly done film

Rating: 10/10 (19 November 2005)

Full Metal Jacket is two excellent films by the late great Stanley Kubrick for the price of one.R.Lee Ermey gives the best performance of his career as the tough as nails Gunnery Sgt.Hartman.Ermey basically plays the same character in every film,but this role is tailor made for him.The first part of Full Metal Jacket is about young men being trained to fight in Vietnam. All though the main character of the film is Matthew Modine's Private Joker the first part of the movie belongs to Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio.Kubrick excels at telling stories of good men who are pushed to the breaking point.Ermey's Hartman drives Private Leonard Lawerence(or Gomer Pyle) insane. You'd all ready have a four star movie there but the second part of the movie adds even more. Joker is now in Vietnam as a correspondent reporter.Kubrick doesn't glamorize war nor does he put it down,we see what these men think and do.We have a very impressive sequence with a sniper the troops can't find.Joker has questions himself if he made the right decision Was he really born to kill? This movie looks impressive the scenes in Vietnam look like war correspondent news footage.We get a psychological thriller and a great war movie.Kubrick has a great cast to work with and the film excels.Highly recommended