Full Metal Jacket

Full Metal Jacket (1987) is a film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the novel The Short-Timers by Gustav Hasford. The film is named after the full-metal jacketed bullets used as military ammunition.

The film portrays the Vietnam War from the point of view of the U.S. Marines. Recurring themes are the contradictions of war, a constant feeling of being out of one's depth, and the idea of combat in Vietnam being part of a different world, with its own rules and customs. The confusion and angst of the new world begins in boot camp, and spirals down into bloodshed before even landing in Vietnam.

The movie was shot in England, at Bassingbourn Barracks in Cambridgeshire and Beckton, in Newham, East London. The derelict Beckton Gasworks site became the ruined city of Huế. The open country is Cliffe marshes, also on the Thames, with palm trees imported from Spain. While this was a reasonable enough approximation of Vietnam (especially the ruined city), it was also influenced by Kubrick's aversion to air travel.

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