Details

Release year: 1987

Storyline

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

Top credits

Directors

Stanley Kubrick

Writers

Cast

Matthew Modine — Pvt. Joker
R. Lee Ermey — Gny. Sgt. Hartman
Vincent D'Onofrio — Pvt. Pyle
Adam Baldwin — Animal Mother

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Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

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Did you know

• In the first part of the movie, in the sequences inside the barracks during the drill, a special lens was designed to keep every single Recruit in focus. Director Stanley Kubrick intended that no one was special and they all had the same treatment.

• According to Matthew Modine (Pvt. Joker) in an interview with Philadelphia radio station WMMR's Preston & Steve Show on May 19, 2017, originally and throughout the shoot, Joker was supposed to die in Vietnam. Director Stanley Kubrick had already scrapped an opening flashback to Joker's funeral, and kept asking Modine what he thought of Joker's death. During one creative argument, Modine blurted out that Joker should live. Kubrick pressed him as to why he should live and Modine explained that Joker saw his D.I. killed in basic training, the recruit he tried to help (Pyle) blow his brains out in a Parris Island head, the only man he knew from basic (Cowboy) die in his arms during battle, and a teen aged female sniper killed by his own hand. Joker had to live because living with those experiences were worse than dying and "that's the real horror of war." Kubrick replied, "that's the end of the movie." Modine never knew if he convinced Kubrick to change the end or if Kubrick already planned the ending and just confirmed it when Modine said it.

• To make Gunnery Sgt. Hartmann's performance and the recruits' reactions as convincing as possible, Matthew Modine, Vincent D'Onofrio, and the other actors playing recruits never met R. Lee Ermey prior to filming. Stanley Kubrick also saw to it that Ermey didn't fraternize with the actors between takes.