Stanley Kubrick's
FULL
METAL
JACKET
Feature - 1987 - 112 minutes
STARRING
MATTHEW MODINE, ADAM BALDWIN, VINCENT D'ONOFRIO, LEE ERMEY, DORIAN HAREWOOD, ARLISS HOWARD, KEVYN MAJOR HOWARD and ED O'ROSS
WRITTEN BY STANLEY KUBRICK, MICHAEL HERR and GUSTAV HASFORD
BASED UPON THE NOVEL "THE SHORT TIMERS" BY GUSTAV HASFORD
DIRECTED BY STANLEY KUBRICK
CHARACTER:
Animal Mother - Basically, Animal Mother is a tough, war-loving soldier with a bad attitude. In battle though, Animal is a great person to have at your side and this was proved as he played a vital role in taking out the deadly sniper toward the end of the film.
THE FILM:
A superb ensemble cast falls in for action in Stanley Kubrick's brilliant saga about the Vietnam war and the dehumanising process that turns people into trained killers.
Joker (Matthew Modine), Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin), Gomer (Vincent D'Onofrio), Eightball (Dorian Harewood), Cowboy (Arliss Howard) and more - are all plunged into boot-camp hell pitbulled by a leatherlung D.I. (Lee Ermey) who views the would-be devil dogs as grunts, maggots or something less.
The action is savage, the story unsparing, the dialoge spiked with scathing humour. Full Metal Jacket, from it's rigours of basic training to it's nightmare of combat in Hue City, scores a cinematic direct hit.
THE REVIEWS:
LEAFANS REVIEW:
TAGLINES:
"In Vietnam, the wind doesn't blow ...it sucks."
AWARDS AND NOMINATIONS:
1987 Academy Awards:
Best Adapted Screenplay - Nominated.
FILMING LOCATIONS:
Pinewood Studios, Iver, Bucks, England.
GENERAL FACTS AND STUFF THAT DOESNT FIT ANYWHERE ELSE:
Based on the novel "The Short-Timers" by Gustav Hasford.
Adam Baldwun talks about working with Stanley Kubrick, Taken from Premiere Magazine, AUGUST 1999:
"We walked around [the site, an old gas works outside London], and he showed me what we were going to do and what kind of tanks he had -- he was fascinated with guns, so we got right to the shooting the next day. The site was pretty run-down; there were all these old buildings that had been destroyed by decay, and they dressed them up with Vietnamese trim and set everything on fire and said, "Okay, boys, run around in the coal dust and the asbestos, fire your guns, and yell real loud." One day, he was trying to figure out what music to use for the end-credits sequence, where he ended up using "Paint It Black." He was walking around with a Walkman, and all the madness was going on: Shots were being set up and tanks were getting loaded and everyone was cocking their weapons. And he's just kinda bopping his head, hummm, hummm. He goes, "Adam, come here a second. I'm thinking about using this as the ending-title-sequence music." I put it on, and it was Sid Vicious's version of "My Way." I just thought that was a wonderful visual of him."
The original cut of the film included a scene at the end where Adam's character, Animal Mother, decapitates the enemy sniper and uses it with his platoon as a football. Adam was disappointed the scene was cut.
To convince Stanley Kubrick that he was right for the role, Adam submitted footage from his films 'My Bodyguard', '3:15' and clips from the play 'Back-to-Back' in which Adam plays one of two soldiers trapped in a fox-hole during the Vietnam war.
RELATED MERCHANDISE:
DVD, VHS, CD Soundtrack at Amazon.com