Film Review: Reviewed By Adrian Turner; 5 out of 5

Stanley Kubrick's penultimate film is a harrowing, foul-mouthed and violent Vietnam War drama. But, unlike the rainforest horrors of Apocalypse Now or Platoon, Kubrick's film begins with a long training camp sequence in America before moving to a bombed-out Vietnamese city. While its message is simple - innocent young Americans are taught to be machine-like killers - its technique is extraordinary. Because Kubrick refused to travel any distance, it was shot entirely in Britain, with palm trees uprooted from Spain and Matthew Modine and a cast of relative unknowns uprooted from Hollywood. Renting a disused gasworks in Beckton, east London, Kubrick created a huge and spectacular outdoor set, though some sequences, it must be said, lack tropical realism. The performances are superb, especially Lee Ermey as the drill sergeant with a colourful vocabulary, Vincent D'Onofrio as the pathetic Private Pyle and Modine as the cynical recruit called Joker.

Plot Summary

War drama starring Matthew Modine and Adam Baldwin. After a gruelling eight weeks of extensive training and military induction under the sadistic rule of Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, a disparate group of US Marines faces real combat in Vietnam.