Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket Full Metal Jacket is a 1987 war film directed, co-written, and produced by Stanley Kubrick and starring Matthew Modine, R. Lee Ermey, Vincent D'Onofrio and Adam Baldwin. The screenplay by Kubrick, Michael Herr, and Gustav Hasford was based on Hasford's novel "The Short-Timers" (1979). The storyline follows a platoon of U.S. Marines through their training, primarily focusing on two privates, Joker and Pyle, who struggle to get through boot camp under their abusive drill instructor, Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, and the experiences of two of the platoon's Marines in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War. The film's
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