Jarhead

Director: Sam Mendes

Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Scott MacDonald, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx

The story of a Gulf War sniper, ‘Jarhead’ is an at times disturbing account of the mental struggle in the front-line. Based on the memoirs of Anthony ‘Swoff’ Swofford, Sam Mendes’ film is at times hilarious, foul, exciting and horrific all at once.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays ‘Swoff’, a twenty-year old US marine who, after enduring the inevitably brutal and humiliating initiations of Boot Camp (the first few scenes in particular will bring memories to anyone who has seen Full Metal Jacket), finds himself as part of the 'elite' STA (Surveillance and Target Acquisition), and on his way to fight Saddam in the Saudi-Arabian desert. However, war is not the constant adrenaline rush Swoff has been led to believe it is. As the feelings of missing out on something big and the endless boredom begin to take their toll, Swoff and his unit resort to testosterone driven lunacy just to stay sane – but all the while aware that the enemy could be just over that next sand dune.

As jets swarm overhead leaving the infantry in their wake, Mendes makes the presence of the modern soldier in a world where warfare is increasingly governed by technology curiously irrelevant. Anyone expecting a typically furious, action-packed war-film may find Jarhead slightly strange in its take on war, but never fear - the frustration of the soldiers on screen is such that, when it finally explodes the resulting adrenaline rush is either terrifying, or exhilarating. Explosions erupt a matter of feet away, tempers flare over into violence as the wait finally gets to be too much - and then Swoff has that one golden kill in the sights of his rifle. As Sergeant Sykes (a superb Jamie Foxx) says to Swoff as they stare out over the literally burning desert - “Who else gets to see s**t like this?”

Rhodri Renno