Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows "Swoff" (Gyllenhaal), a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through Middle East deserts with no cover from intolerable heat or from Iraqi soldiers, always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fully fathom.

Foxx portrays Sergeant Sykes, a Marine lifer who heads up Swofford's scout/sniper platoon, while Sarsgaard is Swoff's friend and mentor, Troy, a die-hard member of STA-their elite Marine Unit.

An irreverent and true account of a war that was antiseptically packaged a decade ago, Jarhead is laced with dark wit, honest inquisition and episodes that are at once surreal and poignant, tragic and absurd.

MOVIE REVIEW

Although Sam Mendes doesn't make many movies, when he does make one it is almost guaranteed to be a masterpiece. Jarhead is no exception. Drastically different from his last two films, Road to Perdition and American Beauty, Jarhead brings the intensity of Full Metal Jacket and combines it with Mendes near perfect story telling and visual styles. Based upon the memoir of the same name written by Anthony Swafford (Gyllenhaal's character) the film takes a realistic look into military life, showing the ups and downs, the homesickness and most of all the waiting. Perhaps only Sam Mendes could make a war film that not only is not about war, but that does not have one battle, not one shot fired by the ground troops. This film is a film about people. People that are placed in some of the most difficult situations imaginable.
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