An interesting look at modern warfare, Jarhead charts the progress of Anthony Swofford (played by Jake Gyllenhaal) as he joins the US Marines, goes through basic training and is posted to Operation Desert Shield, or the first Gulf War as it’s better known. The film is based on the book by Swofford, which is about his own experiences. People have been calling this a war film, I’d say it was, without doubt, an anti-war film, showing what happens when an intelligent, thoughtful guy joins an outfit proud of how many people it can kill. Swofford is slowly made into a human killing machine in a place where testorone and machismo are so thick you have to peer through it on screen. Along for the ride are Peter Sarsgaard as Swofford’s acid tongued buddy (and spotter) and Jamie Foxx as Staff Sgt. Sykes, leader of their unit.
The irony is that, although spending much longer than originally planned in a theatre of war, the marines never get to kill anyone (the don’t even get to fire their weapons until it’s all over), Swofford is about to pull the trigger on his sniper rifle when he is ordered to stand down and some aircraft are ordered in to wipe out the target instead. Once you clear ‘basic,’ most of the movie is about how the marines deal with the fear and boredom of life ‘in the field.’ They deal with the issue of being so far away from loved ones, the possibility of sudden death, comrades who enjoy killing and death too much and what to do with yourself in a desert with nothing to do because the enemy you’ve been trained to fight is thousands of miles away and the air force is doing all the killing.
For me, it was another example of the futility of war and that good men die on the whim of others who sit in high-paid positions in safe places a long way from the front lines. Bureaucrats start wars, soldiers are paid to finish them, or to keep dying until public opinion at home is overwhelmingly against it, not because it’s morally right or wrong to continue or because there’s a job to finish. Nonetheless, it’s an interesting film and gives a good insight into what goes through the mind of an ordinary grunt, a stark contrast to the ‘courage, honour, duty’ views we are fed through so many of the WWII propaganda films, this is about doing right by the guys in your unit.
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