Review of Jarhead (2005) by Zachary G — 16 Jan 2012
From Sam Mendes, his third film as a director after American Beauty (1999) and Road to Perdition (2002), this is based on the 1991 memoirs of U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford, who is the focus of this war drama that shows the madness and tedium of what war can really be like.
Set around 1990 and 91, Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) has joined the U.S. Marines to fight for his country, and his unit is sent to the Persian Gulf to fight in Operation Desert Shield, where they have to get Kuwait back from the clutches of Saddam Hussein.
Swofford is a Scout Sniper for Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), who is tough but charismatic, and Swoffords sniper partner is Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), a criminal who lied on his application to get into the Marines.
However, once they're out there in the desert, around the border with Saudi Arabia and Iraq, there's nothing to do but wait for further instructions, and wait....and wait... Tedium gets to the men, and then Operation Desert Storm begins, but it's still hard to find any action, only the aftermath of whats just happened.
It's a good social statement on the pointlessness of war, and it comes across as a more straight faced variation of Three Kings (1999), but it does have the odd surreal moment in it's storytelling.
This review of Jarhead (2005) was written by Zachary G on 16 Jan 2012.
Jarhead has generally received positive reviews.
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