Jarhead

Rating: 6/10 (16 January 2006)

From director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road to Perdition) comes this pretty good war drama based on a true story. Set in the 1980's, Anthony "Swoff" Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) enlists in the US Marines, and through the long series of training in boot camp, becomes a sniper paired with reliable Troy (Peter Sarsgaard). He and the rest of his unit are taken to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield when the Gulf War breaks out. Over the hundreds of days of boredom, heat, worrying about his girlfriend, nearly killing someone - being demoted for doing so, desert football, mission Desert Storm begins. In less than five days however, after seeing burned bodies, an oil drenched horse, and nearly being able to take a shot, the war was over, and Swoff never got to kill anyone, so the only bullets fired are those of victory. Also starring Jamie Foxx as Staff Sgt. Sykes, Chris Cooper as Lt. Col. Kazinski, Scott MacDonald as D.I. Fitch. I was expecting a regular war film, but what I actually got was a well put-together story with some great acting and direction. Good!