Full Metal Jacket:Kubrick's Extremely Violent Vietnam War Film

Rating: 10/10 (6 March 2012)

Full Metal Jacket is a war film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is an adaptation of the 1979 novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford and stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, R. Lee Ermey, Arliss Howard and Adam Baldwin. The film follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training and the experiences of two of the platoon in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen.
This film crystallizes the experience of the Vietnam War by concentrating on a group of raw Marine volunteers. The first half details the volunteers' harrowing boot-camp training under the profane, power-saw guidance of drill instructor Sgt. Hartman.While the second half takes place in Nam, as seen through the eyes of the now thoroughly indoctrinated marines.
Full Metal Jacket is not a realistic film -- it is horror-comic surrealism, from a God's-eye view -- but it should fully engage the ordinary movie grunt.This is the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove, as well as the most horrific; the first section alone accomplishes most of what The Shining failed to do.Aside from that,it was the harrowing, beautiful and characteristically eccentric new film about Vietnam, is going to puzzle, anger and fascinate audiences as much as any film he has made to date.Finally,it was an extremely graphic, violent Vietnam War film.