Full Metal Jacket
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Short description
Full Metal Jacket follows a group of young American men as they are turned into Marines at a training camp in South Carolina and then sent to fight in Vietnam. The story centers on a recruit nicknamed Joker, who struggles to hold on to his own mind while the system around him works to strip away his humanity. The training is brutal and unrelenting, and it leaves deep scars on the men before they ever reach the battlefield. Once in Vietnam, Joker serves as a correspondent for a military newspaper, and he and his comrades are drawn into the heavy fighting around Hue during the Tet Offensive.
Stanley Kubrick directed, produced and co-wrote the film, adapting the novel by Gustav Hasford with Hasford and Michael Herr. It was the twelfth of the thirteen features he directed, coming after The Shining and before Eyes Wide Shut. The cast includes Matthew Modine as Joker, Adam Baldwin as Animal Mother, Vincent D'Onofrio as the recruit Pyle and R. Lee Ermey as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, with 109 credited performers in all.
Made on a budget of about 30 million dollars, the film took roughly 51 million dollars worldwide, a modest return by the standards of large studio war pictures. Audiences rate it highly: it holds 8.2 out of 10 on IMDb from around 847,000 votes and 8.1 out of 10 on TMDB from some 11,760 votes. A critics' rating of 8.6 out of 10 from 87 reviews places it above those audience scores.
What's left behind the scenes
- Stanley Kubrick's parents, who lived a secluded life in California, died during the making of this film: Gertrude on April 23, 1985, and Jacob on October 18.
- In all scenes of the film, the sergeant appears with a hat on his head – even in the episode when everyone wakes up at night.
- The film included a scene in which soldiers played football with a human head. The scene was cut during editing. Footage of the Joker's sexual encounter with a Vietnamese prostitute was also removed.
- The name "Homer Cucha" appeared in the film's script not by chance – at the height of the Vietnam War, the CBS network aired a comedic television series "Homer Cucha, Marine" (1964-1969) about the amusing adventures of a new recruit in the US Marine Corps.
- The title refers to a type of ammunition used in firearms (a full metal jacket bullet).
- Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger could have starred in this film, but they declined in favor of the series "Moonlighting" and the film "The Running Man," respectively. The difference is that Schwarzenegger refused voluntarily, while Willis was forced to do so due to the terms of his contract with the series creators. Matthew Modine and Adam Baldwin played the roles offered to them, respectively.
- The film is based on Gustav Hasford's novel “The Short-Timers” (1979).
- In fact, R. Lee Ermey was a former combat training instructor and served as a consultant on set, but Stanley Kubrick was so impressed with his carefully selected profanity that he immediately offered him the role of Sergeant Hartman.
- Vincent D’Onofrio gained 70 pounds (~31.8 kg) for the role of Homer Cuchis.
- The screenplay was primarily written by Michael Herr, a close friend of Kubrick who had himself been a war correspondent in Vietnam.
- Preparing to repel a nighttime attack, the Joker runs holding an M-16 rifle. However, behind the barricade, he loads an M-60 machine gun.
- The entire film was shot in England, as Stanley Kubrick was afraid of flying.
- During the scene where a Vietnamese sniper shoots at the machine gunner, a fountain of dust and sand is first seen from the impact of the bullet on the corner of the building, and only then does the flash from the shot appear.
- Gustav Hasford himself served in Vietnam and largely based the characters in his novel on former colleagues.
- Stanley Kubrick specifically did not want to cast major stars in the film – firstly, to avoid inflating the budget, and secondly, he wanted to portray “ordinary” guys.
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