Full Metal Jacket (1987)

A two-segment look at the effect of the military mindset and war itself on Vietnam era Marines. The first half follows a group of recruits in basic training under the command of the punishing Sgt. Hartman. The second half shows one of those recruits, Joker, covering the war as a correspondent for Stars and Stripes, focusing on the Tet offensive.

Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. It stars Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, and former Marine Sergeant R. Lee Ermey. The title refers to the full metal jacket bullet used by infantry riflemen.

Full Metal Jacket received critical acclaim. Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader labeled it "the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since Dr. Strangelove". Variety referred to the film as an "intense, schematic, superbly made" drama, while Vincent Canby of the New York Times called it "harrowing" and "beautiful." Chicago Sun-Times critic Roger Ebert had a dissenting view, stating the film was "strangely shapeless", giving it a a 2.5 stars – a "thumbs down" by Ebert's standards. Gene Siskel famously took Ebert to task for this view on their television show, especially so for simultaneously praising Benji the Hunted. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie a 96% rating.

The film received a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Writing for an adapted screenplay. Ermey was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor.

Compared to Kubrick's other works, the themes of Full Metal Jacket have received little attention from critics and reviewers. With the exception of Rob Ager's lengthy video narration, The Hidden Hand, reviews have mostly focused on military brainwashing themes in the boot-camp training section of the film, while seeing the latter half of the film as more confusing and disjointed in content. Rita Kempley of the Washington Post wrote, "it's as if they borrowed bits of every war movie to make this eclectic finale." Roger Ebert explained, "The movie disintegrates into a series of self-contained set pieces, none of them quite satisfying." Ager interprets these aspects of the film as Kubrick's satirical critique of pro-war propaganda in Hollywood war movies.

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