Full Metal Jacket

Dir. Stanley Kubrick. 1987. 116 mins. 35mm. With Matthew Modine, Adam Baldwin, Vincent D’Onofrio, Lee Ermey, Dorian Harewood, Arliss Howard, Kevyn Major Howard, Ed O’Ross. Wearing a peace symbol and a helmet marked “Born to Kill,” Joker (Modine) is a military journalist trying to maintain his cynicism and sanity during basic training and combat in Kubrick’s harrowing Vietnam drama. Unlike concurrent films about the U.S. involvement in the war in  Southeast Asia, such as Platoon, Kubrick’s film is by design unemotional, taking as its main subject the dehumanization of the American war machine itself, personified in the first half by the abusive drill sergeant played by Ermey and in the second by the mechanical, distanced nature of the violent battles themselves.