Jarhead (film)

Jarhead (film)

Infobox_Film
name = Jarhead



caption = Promotional poster for Jarhead
writer = William Broyles Jr. (screenplay)
Anthony Swofford (book)
starring = Jake Gyllenhaal
Peter Sarsgaard
Lucas Black
Brian Geraghty
Marty Papazian
Laz Alonso
Jacob Vargas
Evan Jones
With Chris Cooper
as 'Lt. Col. Kazinski'
Dennis Haysbert
as 'Maj. Lincoln'
Scott MacDonald
as 'D.I. Fitch'
And Jamie Foxx | music = Thomas Newman
director = Sam Mendes
producer = Douglas Wick
Lucy Fisher
Bobby Cohen
Sam Mercer
editing = Walter Murch
distributor = Universal Pictures
released = November 4, 2005 (USA)
language = English, Arabic
runtime = 123 minutes
budget = $72,000,000
gross_revenue = $97,000,000
imdb_id = 0418763
amg_id = 1:313654

"Jarhead" is a 2005 film based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War memoir "", starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford. The title comes from the slang term used to refer to Marines (sometimes by Marines themselves). The film was directed by Academy Award winner Sam Mendes, most famous for his 1999 film "American Beauty".

Plot

The film begins with voice-over narration on a black screen, as Jake Gyllenhaal, playing Anthony Swofford, waxes philosophical about a soldier whose hands forever remember the grip of a rifle, whatever else they do in life. Swofford is then shown in a U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, being brutalized by a drill instructor in a scene reminiscent of "Full Metal Jacket". After finishing boot, "Swoff" is dispatched to Camp Pendleton in 1989, where he is subjected to a cruel joke, which involves branding on to him by a hot iron the name of his company he is training in by the senior Marines and faints. After regaining consciousness, he is greeted coolly by Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), who says to him, "Welcome to the Suck."

Swofford comes across the charismatic Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), a Marine "lifer" who invites Swofford to his Scout Sniper (formally the Surveillance and Target Acquisition) course. After arduous training sessions that claim the life of one recruit, he becomes a sniper and is paired with Troy as his spotter. Shortly after, Kuwait is invaded by Iraq and Swofford's unit is dispatched to the Persian Gulf as a part of Operation Desert Shield. Although the Marines are very eager to see some combat action, they are forced to hydrate, wait, patrol the nearby area, hydrate some more and orient themselves to the arid environment. When some field reporters appear, Sykes forces his unit to demonstrate their NBC suits in a game of American football, even under the 112 degree heat. While the cameras roll, the game develops into a rowdy dogpile, with some Marines playfully miming sex acts. Sykes, embarrassed by his platoon's rude manners and poor discipline, removes the cameras and crew from the area; the Marines are later punished by being forced to build and take down a massive pyramid of sandbags in a rainy night.

During the long wait, some of the Marines fear their wives and girlfriends at home will be unfaithful. A public board displays the photos of women who have ended their relationships with members of the unit. Swofford himself begins to suspect that his girlfriend is, or will soon be, unfaithful. The most public and humiliating of these befalls Dettman (Marty Papazian), who discovers an innocent looking copy of "The Deer Hunter" on VHS sent from his wife, which the men are all seated to watch, is actually a homemade pornographic movie tape of her having sex with their neighbor, apparently made as revenge for Dettman's own promiscuity.

During an impromptu Christmas party, Fergus (Brian Geraghty), a member of Swofford's unit, accidentally sets fire to a tent and a crate of flares. Swofford gets the blame because he was supposed to be on watch, but had Fergus sit in for him. As a consequence, Swofford is demoted from Lance Corporal (E-3) to Private (E-1) and is forced to undertake the degrading task of burning excrement. The punishments, the heat and the boredom, combined with suspicions of his girlfriend's infidelity and feelings of isolation, temporarily drive Swofford to the point of mental breakdown.

After the long stand in the desert, Operation Desert Storm, the coalition force's ground campaign, begins, and the Marines are dispatched to the Saudi-Kuwaiti border. Briefly before the action begins, Swofford learns from Sykes that Troy concealed his criminal record when enlisting and will be discharged after the end of hostilities. Following an accidental air attack from friendly forces, the Marines advance through the desert, facing no enemies on the ground. Casualties are taken when friendly fire from an A-10 close air support aircraft hits U.S. vehicles. The troops march through the Highway of Death, strewn with burnt vehicles and remains of charred bodies, a product of the bombing campaign. Later, the Marines encounter burning oil wells, lit by the retreating Iraqis, and they attempt to dig sleeping holes as a rain of crude oil falls from the sky.

Swofford and Troy are finally given a combat mission. Their order is to shoot two Iraqi officers, supposedly located in a control tower at a battle-damaged airport. The two take up positions in a deserted building, but moments after Swofford pinpoints one of the officers in his sights, another team of Marines appears and calls in an air strike. Troy, desperate to make a kill, pleads with the officer in charge (Dennis Haysbert) to let them take the shot. When his pleas are denied, Troy breaks down in a fit of despair and weeps. Moments later the airport is bombed by U.S. warplanes. Swofford and Troy linger at the site in a daze, losing track of time and missing their pick-up. With night falling, they try to navigate the desert but get lost. Distant cries in the darkness frighten them, and as they begin to sense that the sounds are coming from beyond a ridge, they ready their weapons and prepare to descend. They see an encampment in the distance, but on closer look they recognize it as their base camp, and the sounds as Marine voices. The war is over, they learn, and scores of soldiers celebrate this amidst a bonfire. In a climactic scene Swofford tells Troy he never fired his rifle, getting a response of "You can do it now". He then fires a round in the air from his sniper rifle and the other Marines, who also never had a chance to fire their weapons, follow suit, emptying magazines into the night sky.

On returning home the troops parade through the towns in a jovial celebration of victory. The mood is disturbed when a disheveled Vietnam veteran, possibly suffering from the memories of the conflict, jumps into their bus, and congratulates them all. Soon after their return home, Swofford and his comrades are discharged and go on with their separate lives. Swofford returns home to his girlfriend, but discovers her with a new boyfriend. Fowler (Evan Jones) is seen to be spending time with a girl at a bar, very likely a prostitute, Kruger (Lucas Black) is seen in a corporate boardroom, Escobar (Laz Alonso) as a supermarket employee, Cortez (Jacob Vargas) as a father of three kids, and Sykes continuing his service as a Marine in Operation Iraqi Freedom. An unspecified amount of time later, Swofford learns of Troy's death during a surprise visit from Fergus. He attends the funeral, meets some of his old friends, and afterwards he reminisces about the effects of the war.

Response

The film received mixed reviews from critics, registering a 60% Tomatometer rating (53% Cream of the Crop) on Rotten Tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave the movie 3½ out of 4 stars, crediting it for its unique portrayal of Gulf War Marines who battled more boredom and a sense of isolation rather than enemy combatants. Peter Travers of "Rolling Stone" and Richard Schickel of "Time Magazine" also filed positive reviews. Other critics, however, such as David Denby in "The New Yorker", cited an unstructured plot. In an interview with the UK film magazine, "Empire", Mendes stated he thought "Jarhead" would be his most misunderstood film. Nathaniel Fick, another author who served in the Marines, gave the film a mixed review (and panned the book on which it is based) in Slate. [cite web | url=http://www.slate.com/id/2129813/ | title=How Accurate Is Jarhead? | first=Nathaniel | last=Fick | authorlink=Nathaniel Fick | date=2005-11-09 | publisher=Slate | accessdate=2007-10-19 ]

Awards

Wins

* San Diego Film Critics Society Special Award (Jake Gyllenhaal for Body of Work) (also for Brokeback Mountain and Proof)

Nominations

* Art Directors Guild Excellence in Production Design Award for Contemporary Feature Film (Dennis Gassner, Stefan Dechant, Christina Wilson, Marco Niro, A. Todd Holland, Christopher Tandon)
* Black Movie Award for Outstanding Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role (Jamie Foxx)
* Satellite Award for Outstanding Actor in a Motion Picture, Drama (Jake Gyllenhaal)
* Satellite Award for Outstanding Actor in a Supporting Role, Drama (Peter Sarsgaard)
* Satellite Award for Outstanding Film Editing (Walter Murch)
* Satellite Award for Outstanding Screenplay, Adapted (William Broyles Jr.)
* Visual Effects Society Award for Outstanding Supporting Visual Effects in a Motion Picture (Pablo Helman, Jeanie King, Grady Cofer, Brett Northcutt)
* Washington DC Area Film Critics Association Award for Best Supporting Actor (Peter Sarsgaard)

Differences from the book

*In the book, Staff Sergeant Sykes is actually pronounced "Sikes", spelled "Siek", and he has a very small role in the book.
*The sniper tower scene didn't actually happen as it did. In the book, Swofford and Johnny were supporting some Marine Infantry taking the airfield; they were not interrupted by anyone. They were only ordered not to take the shot.
*The USMC Major who calls in fast air on the airfield actually appears in the book after the Iraqi mortar bombardment. It was for this purpose that Swofford makes the run to collect the radio batteries.
* Also, during the "friendly-fire" incident soon after, Swofford and his platoon were fired upon by a mechanised infantry company, callsign "Ripper". However, in the film adaptation, the platoon is fired upon by a pair of A-10 Thunderbolt II anti-tank aircraft. This is even more unlikely because the platoon is on foot. Also, the A-10's should have already been inside Iraqi territory, possibly hours before the main offensive.
*Troy was not a drug dealer in reality; he died in a car accident on the way to work after he left the Marine Corps apparently being drunk and struck a tree on black ice. The book claimed that Troy was not able to re-enlist in the Marines because of a positive drug urine test.
*The book goes somewhat into Swofford's childhood up until he joined the Marines; however, in the film, his upbringing is only explained in brief detail.
*The entire oil scene when they dig in the oil wells did not happen in the book, and has led to sharp rebukes from others who had served in the Gulf at the time.
*In the book, Anthony Swofford wasn't demoted from lance corporal to private, but was reprimanded and forced to burn toilet waste for a week because he was in charge of his platoon, at a time when Sykes was absent, because Dettman failed to wake up at 0400. As a result, Dettman did not wake up the rest of his platoon for planned range time, with Swofford later detailing an incident in the book where he stuck a M-16 rifle to Dettman's head and threatened to kill Dettman because of this. Furthermore, Swofford claims in his book that he only burned the waste for one day and paid another Marine to burn the waste for the remaining six days. Later, after his return to the United States, LCpl Swofford was promoted to full Corporal, a rank of E-4.
*The book does not attribute Dettman's wife as inserting her unfaithfulness in a movie that was played for other Marines. While this incident apparently did happen, the affected Marine was unnamed in the book and was never a part of Swofford's unit. This form of unfaithfulness is a well documented urban legend.

DVD release date

Released on March 7, 2006, the movie is available as a single disc standard version (in both fullscreen and widescreen) and a 2-disc Collector's Edition. Oddly, the Collectors Edition was discontinued immediately following release, and is considered a rare item. It was available for only one week. While there has been no official word as to why, the second disc does contain a lot of political content which may be considered as controversial.

The single disc standard version has been included with a goodie protective silver casing, engraved on the front is the shape of a dog tag with the word "Jarhead" written on it. Stores to have given this goodie away include HMV and FYE.

See also

* United States Marine Corps

Footnotes

External links

* [http://www.jarheadmovie.com Official webpage]
*imdb title|id=0418763|title=Jarhead
*rotten-tomatoes|id=1152567-jarhead|title=Jarhead
* Richard D. North [http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000776.php How fair is Jarhead to US Marines?] Social Affairs Unit Web Review, February 2006
* [http://midnight.hushedcasket.com/2006/05/31/thoughts-on-jarhead/ Thoughts on Jarhead] US Marine First Lt. Jeffrey D. Barnett reviews Jarhead


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