Full Metal Jacket to have his head shaved once a week. At one point during filming, Ermey had a car accident, broke all of his ribs on one side, and was out for four-and-half months. Cowboy's death scene shows a building in the background that resembles the famous alien monolith in Kubrick's "" (1968). Kubrick described the resemblance as an "extraordinary accident". During filming, Hasford contemplated taking legal action over the writing credits. Originally, the filmmakers intended for Hasford to receive an "additional dialogue" credit, but he fought for and eventually received full credit. The writer took two friends and visited the set
Full Metal Jacket Ermey, calling him "the film's stunning surprise ... he's so good—so obsessed—that you might think he wrote his own lines". Canby also said D'Onofrio's performance should be admired, and he called Modine "one of the best, most adaptable young film actors of his generation". Canby concluded: "Full Metal Jacket" was "a film of immense and very rare imagination". Jim Hall, writing for Film4 in 2010, awarded the film 5 out of 5 stars and added to the praise for Ermey, saying his "performance as the foul-mouthed Hartman is justly celebrated and it's difficult to imagine the film working anything like