‘Do you maggots understand that?!’ Our TV movie pick for tonight (Thursday, 23 May) is Full Metal Jacket , which was recently named the “second best war movie of all time”. Co-written and directed by Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Strangelove , The Shining) – widely considered the greatest filmmaker ever – the 1987 film is set during Vietnam War and follows the experiences of J.
T. ‘Joker’ Davis (Matthew Modine, Stranger Things). This is as Joker endures the rigours of basic training pre-deployment under an abusive and foul-mouthed drill sergeant (R.
Lee Ermey, in a now iconic performance) and later when the soldier is sent to Vietnam as a military journalist. There, he covers and eventually participates in the bloody Battle of Hué. Also co-starring an incredible Vincent D’Onofrio as Joker’s fellow soldier in training Leonard ‘Gomer Pyle’ Lawrence, Full Metal Jacket was Kubrick’s second last movie.
And the hard-hitting war film saw him operating at the height of his powers – capturing the madness of war but also the impact training and combat has on soldiers’ psyche. Full Metal Jacket is so well-regarded, in fact, that the voters at Ranker recently crowned it the second best war movie of all time – right behind Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan. The Kubrick film is airing on TV on the channel Quest at 10pm .
It is also available to rent on Apple TV, Google Play, Microsoft, Rakuten TV and the Sky Store. Here are the other mo.