Based on Anthony Swofford’s memoir of the Persian Gulf War, Jarhead, starring Jake Gyllenhaal was directed by Sam Mendes and written by William Broyles Jr. The film was released in 2005 by Universal Pictures.
Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows Swoff (Jake Gyllenhaal), a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty.
Sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck on his back through Middle East deserts with no cover from intolerable heat or from Iraqi soliders, that are always potentially just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they dont understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fathom.
An irreverant and true account of a war that was antiseptically packaged, Jarhead is laced with dark wit, honest inquistion and episodes that are at once surreal and poignant, tragic and absurd.
A Neal Street and Red Wagon Production.
