Stephen Simmonds

Full Metal Jacket -- 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.

"Full Metal Jacket" joins "The Deer Hunter," "Apocalypse Now" and "Platoon" on the frontline of powerful films about the Vietnam War. Cinematic genius Stanley Kubrick ("A Clockwork Orange," "The Shining"), awarded Best Director by the London Film Critics Circle, traces a young Marine's (Matthew Modine, "Pacific Heights," "And the Band Played On") odyssey from dehumanizing boot camp to the bloody terror of the Tet Offensive. Co-starring Vincent D'Onofrio ("The Player"), Arliss Howard ("Tequila Sunrise"), Adam Baldwin ("Serenity"), Dorian Harewood ("Pacific Heights") and adding true grit to the Marines' basic training, a powerhouse performance by real-life former drill instructor R. Lee Ermey (the "Toy Story" movies). Adapted from Gustav Hasford's story "The Short Timers" by Hasford, Michael Herr and Kubrick.

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.

A pragmatic U.S. Marine observes the dehumanizing effects the Vietnam War has on his fellow Marine recruits from their brutal basic training to the bloody street fighting set in 1968 Hue, Vietnam.