I'm glad John Wayne and Gary Cooper didn't live to see this

Rating: 7/10 (12 February 2007)

"Jarhead" is a 2005 film directed by Sam Mendes based on former Marine Anthony Swofford's best-selling 2003 book about his experiences in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. It has been described as a film about these young men bonding in the desert, but that doesn't match up with the film I saw.
Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx are the big names in the film, with Gyllenhaal portraying Swofford and Foxx the staff sergeant in charge of his crew of snipers.
After enduring a sadistic and seemingly pointless hazing by his new cohorts, Swofford finds himself sent off with them to Saudi Arabia. There they battle boredom, heat, official stupidity and their own banality. Tormented by the meaningless routine and (justified) fears of his girl's infidelity, Swofford goes "off the deep end" and threatens a fellow marine with a loaded weapon before begging that same marine to shoot him.
As Desert Shield morphs into Desert Storm, the marines do many entertaining things, such as dodging friendly fire from above, making obscene gestures to arab women, blowing the heads off camels and posing for photos with the charred corpses of dead arabs incinerated by American aircraft while attempting to flee.
Finally, after much angst, the war ends without any of them having fired their weapons. So they celebrate by shooting them into the air.
Oo rah.
Interestingly, the German title for the film is "Jarhead - Wilkommen im Dreck," which I guess translates to Jarhead - welcome to the suck, an oft-repeated sentiment among these thuggish semi-literates. I am accustomed to a different and, in my opinion, more accurate translation of "dreck." Which is not to say that this is a bad movie. In fact, it is pretty good. It is, however, a very unflattering portrayal of today's U.S. Marines. I'm afraid we've come a long way from "Sands of Iwo Jima," and John Wayne is spinning in his grave.