I have read mixed reviews about Jarhead, the 2005 film starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, and Peter Sarsgaard, so I didn’t know what to expect when I watched it. All I can say about it is that it wasn’t my kind of movie.
Jarhead tells the story of Anthony Swofford, a U.S. Marine who served in the first Gulf War in the early ’90s, and his unit of snipers. The movie is about how much the Marines trained, and how the endless waiting in the desert drove them crazy. They desperately wanted to see some action and perhaps get a kill, but that never happened.
The movie is billed as a “character study,” so it’s not a typical war movie. There’s very little action in it. But the problem with the film, as far as I’m concerned is that the characters weren’t the least bit interesting. The movie never made me care about Swofford or his buddies, so I didn’t care what happened to them.
Overall, I personally wouldn’t recommend this movie, but I can see why some would like it.