Full Metal Jacket Diary Full Metal Jacket Diary Full Metal Jacket Diary is a book written by American author, actor and photographer Matthew Modine and published by Rugged Land October 25, 2005. The book contains photos and diary entries of his experiences over a two-year period while working on the epic Stanley Kubrick film, "Full Metal Jacket". Modine played the lead role of Private Joker, a U.S. Marine who is sent to Vietnam as a war correspondent for "Stars and Stripes". While filming, Modine was encouraged by Kubrick to keep a diary of his experiences. Notorious for his closed film sets, Kubrick granted Modine
Full Metal Jacket reviews. Reviewers generally reacted favorably to the cast, Ermey in particular, and the film's first act in recruit training, but several reviews were critical of the latter part of the film set in Vietnam and what was considered a "muddled" moral message in the finale. It ranks on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills. Richard Corliss of "Time" called the film a "technical knockout", praising "the dialogue's wild, desperate wit; the daring in choosing a desultory skirmish to make a point about war's pointlessness", and "the fine, large performances of almost every actor", believing, at the time, that Ermey and D'Onofrio