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 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