Jarhead

Jarhead 2005

• Director: Sam Mendes
• Seen by this director: 1917, Spectre, Skyfall, Road to Perdition, American Beauty
• Based on book by Anthony Swafford
• Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard
• Personal “oh yeah him/her” reaction, i.e. have seen this actor in:
• Jake Gyllenhaal – Life, Everest, Prisoners, Source Code, Zodiac, Proof, Brokeback Mountain, Day after Tomorrow, The Good Girl, Donnie Darko
• Jamie Foxx – Django Unchained, The Soloist, Dreamgirls, Miami Vice, Ray
• Peter Sarsgaard – An Education, Dead Man Walking
• Why?  Possibly interesting
• Seen:  30 May 2023 

Tony Swafford (Gyllenhaal) has stupidly signed a contract, joins the Marines, is sent to Kuwait, and waits. War is hell but waiting for war to happen when it is all around you in a hellish desert, when your mission is to protect oil interests, is a guarantee for madness. If you weren’t mad already.

Maybe everybody who voluntarily joins the military is mad, but no question about it – the military is madness. And meaningless. This film shows that clearly.

Here’s a thought. What if the US, as the leading world power at the end of WWII, had had the wisdom and courage to say, ‘Enough,’ to divert all military costs to education, health care, social and economic equality, and a sustainable environment, and stopped selling weapons around the world, would the vicious circle have been broken? Would this film had to have been made? 

I can’t rate this.