Jarhead war movie

Jarhead (2005, United States)

Categories: desert movies infantry movies military base movies

Jarhead

Director: Sam Mendes

Czas: 125 minut

Laguages: English

war movies infoAdam 'Frey' Barczynski
1970-01-01 / 1970-01-01

Young man joins the US Marines and soon goes to Middle East before the Gulf War.

Anthony Swofford joins US Marines and starts the basic military training and later takes the Scout Sniper course. His unit is about to be sent abroad to Persian Gulf region that recently became the point of interest for the whole world. In 1990, after the invasion on Kuwait, Swofford is among the troops that are located next to Iraqi border in preparations to the Desert Storm Operation, one of the first wars that will get the extensive TV coverage. But the conflict seen on TV is completely different from the experience of the soldiers involved. For them every day near the Iraqi border is fulled with boredom, drills and yearning to either return home or go into the fight.

Film presents the everyday life of US Marines on the desert just waiting for the Iraqi operation to start. They are bored, they have no idea what to expect from the conflict (if there will be one) except that they will win quickly. But weeks go by and they are still in the same place, doing the same things they did last week. When the operation actually starts they feel tired and depressed.

Jarhead is based on a book written by veteran of Desert Storm and concentrates rather on the state of mind of average marine than the conflict itself or the political background. On one hand it’s a good thing, because we see what we couldn’t see on TV during the war, but on the other hand the film is average at best - the anecdotes from the lives of marines in Middle East aren’t that interesting. The war itself is shown in just a short sequence and even though it is rather realistic image still it’s hard to get excited about this movie. People often say "this story would make a great movie", but story of Anthony Swofford obviously wouldn’t and Jarhead is the best proof.

Our rating

5.2

Film value

4 / 10

Realism factor

4 / 5

Adventure factor

1 / 5

Historical accuracy

4 / 5

1970-01-01

Jarhead full movie

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