Starring: Adam Baldwin, Bruce Boa, Tim Colceri, Vincent D'Onofrio, Peter Edmund Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: R (Restricted) Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, Original recording remastered, NTSC Label: Warner Home Video Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: June 12, 2001 Running Time: 116 minutes Theatrical Release Date: June 26, 1987
Description: The story of an 18-year-old marine recruit named Private Joker - from his carnage-and-machismo boot camp to his climactic involvement in the heavy fighting in Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Amazon.com essential video: Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point. --Tom Keogh
Amazon.com: Stanley Kubrick's 1987, penultimate film seemed to a lot of people to be contrived and out of touch with the '80s vogue for such intensely realistic portrayals of the Vietnam War as Platoon and The Deer Hunter. Certainly, Kubrick gave audiences plenty of reason to wonder why he made the film at all: essentially a two-part drama that begins on a Parris Island boot camp for rookie Marines and abruptly switches to Vietnam (actually shot on sound stages and locations near London), Full Metal Jacket comes across as a series of self-contained chapters in a story whose logical and thematic development is oblique at best. Then again, much the same was said about Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, a masterwork both enthralled with and satiric about the future's role in the unfinished business of human evolution. In a way, Full Metal Jacket is the wholly grim counterpart of 2001. While the latter is a truly 1960s film, both wide-eyed and wary, about the intertwining of progress and isolation (ending in our redemption, finally, by death), Full Metal Jacket is a cynical, Reagan-era view of the 1960s' hunger for experience and consciousness that fulfilled itself in violence. Lee Ermey made film history as the Marine drill instructor whose ritualized debasement of men in the name of tribal uniformity creates its darkest angel in a murderous half-wit (Vincent D'Onofrio). Matthew Modine gives a smart and savvy performance as Private Joker, the clowning, military journalist who yearns to get away from the propaganda machine and know firsthand the horrific revelation of the front line. In Full Metal Jacket, depravity and fulfillment go hand in hand, and it's no wonder Kubrick kept his steely distance from the material to make the point. --Tom Keogh
War Movies A good war movie, but for me not the classic some portray it as being.
Widescreen is cropped version of Full Screen version I bought the Blu-ray version of Full Metal Jacket thinking this would be a true widescreen version, but it's not. The movie is actually a cropped version of the Full Screen version. After comparing the two versions, the Blu-ray version seems cramped and lacks the visual composition of the original Full Screen version.
This rating has nothing to do with the quality of the story or the audio, which is excellent.
The rating has everything to do with releasing this movie as a Widescreen version of the movie. If you want to see what you are missing, buy the original DVD version instead.
Reality of War is Painful - This Movie Brings it Home This is a movie that I've viewed repeatedly over the years and still enjoy very much as it is strikingly genuine versus most Hollywood presentations of War. Having been drafted myself in 1969 and took an extra year to determine my vocational choice versus being dictated. Military was very different as there was no volunteer system yet - you found yourself serving next to teachers and engineers and other professionals because of the draft. The presentation of Boot Camp is so real in this movie and the Dufus that commits murder/suicide - there is one of these guys in every company that gets pushed and pushed and during war where you're losing hundreds weekly it's the DI's job to get them through not send them home.
I often found Platoon and Apocalypse nice to look at but found them insulting to GI's and unreal. The portrayal of Boot Camp and it's push to remove individualism at all costs for the TEAM was very real and the discipline enforced by the group in it's partnering in said discipline with blanket parties is genuine. Somebody screws up invariably and the group pays a price and the group then becomes the enforcer of TEAM.
The presentation of Vietnam experience matches pretty much exactly what everyone shared and also quite often a number of troops were killed due to simple mistakes - Charlie was a master of guerilla warfare and the war was a roaming battle zone that often had no boundaries. Vietnam had plenty of cheap sex, booze, smoke but younger people may never understand how great the casualty count was on both sides - we lost over 53,000 but the Vietnamese lost over a million. War is Hell and no real glory. This movie depicts it far better than any I've seen.
Part ONE the making of a Marine and Part TWO the reality of being (slogans don't mean jack when your in an ambush) - there's no a video game do over. While most of us that survived are now old farts, this movie brings home one's youth of the day and how overnight you can become the property of the US Govt and Holy Crap why am I in this friggin foreign land fighting for this hunk of dirt, swamp - we used to talk of what the hell would we win even if we could claim victory? A place to sell more coke and consumer goods?
Now, today I find myself buying goods like Canon Printers and a Jacket from a luxury store and candles from Target and they have imprinted Made in Vietnam on them. So we won without having to fight - money talks better than bullets!
For a reminder of what it's about especially when a draft is in place during national emergencies view this flick - God Bless our Troops in Iraq and may they leave that dust bowl (with OIL below) sooner than later and today I would ask the same damn question - If we could declare a Victory what the hell have we one? Nothing!!! The futility of War and the pawns of the soldiers that serve us and die for Jack too far often! I despise the waste of any Soldier! (Human Being) Enjoy the Movie for the reality it depicts despite the passing of time!
fast delivery the product came as advertised. it was clean with no scratches and wrapped nicely. the package arrived on time or sooner than expected.
Impressive and good quality blu-ray movie. Although a movie over 30 years old, i think this blu-ray version is up to quality. Sound also ok!
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