Full Metal Jacket as effectively without him". The review also preferred the opening training to the later Vietnam sequence, calling it "far more striking than the second and longer section". Film4 commented that the film ends abruptly but felt "it demonstrates just how clear and precise the director's vision could be when he resisted a fatal tendency for indulgence". Film4 concluded: ""Full Metal Jacket" ranks with "Dr. Strangelove" as one of Kubrick's very best." Jonathan Rosenbaum of the "Chicago Reader" called it "Elliptical, full of subtle inner rhymes … and profoundly moving, this is the most tightly crafted Kubrick film since "Dr. Strangelove",
The Jacket in the United Kingdom as "The Jacket" and in the United States of America as "The Star Rover". Director Maybury has said that the film is "loosely based on a true story that became a Jack London story". The true story is that of Ed Morrell, who told London about San Quentin prison's inhumane use of tight straitjackets. "The Jacket" opened on March 4, 2005, and grossed $2,723,682 on opening weekend, with a peak release of 1,331 theaters in the United States. The film went on to gross $6,303,762 domestically, for a total of $21,126,225 worldwide. "The Jacket" garnered mixed