Thursday, April 12, 2012

Jarhead (2005)



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Rating: 3!
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Yet another fantastic movie for April. This time starting with my favorite letter J. Jarhead stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, and Chris Cooper. This is another film about a true story by Anthony Swofford but this time it is a biographical piece, as the star (Gyllenhaal) of the movie is the author himself.

The movie is about the life of the author as a soldier in the Persian Gulf War in the late 80s and early 90s. Instead of the normal war film, Jarhead shows what life was like for these soldiers and their lack of exposure to combat. Most of them were guarding oil fields and rarely ever fired a bullet. Swofford was a scout sniper that dealt with the heat of the desert, missing his girlfriend back home, worrying about said girlfriend cheating on him, the relations with his comrades, and interactions with his commanding officers.

The plot is very slow moving but has a lot of detail. All of the detail in it is incredible mainly because it is so new. You never get to see the slow side of what being a soldier is like. It's always fighting and fighting. Never the dull parts. But even those are far from it. Everything slow in a soldiers life is the mentally exhausting part and that creates even more interesting character into what a human being is like once they are stressed under conditions that they don't agree with.

All of the actors do an amazing job. Gyllenhaal is once again amazing. He really can fit into many different roles and this one is no different. I saw him on screen but I didn't see what I am used to at all. I hope that he did a great job compared to the book. I honestly doubt that I'll ever get around to reading it but this movie does very very well in it's own right.

I highly recommend this one if you are a fan of war films. This one gives such an entirely new look into a soldier's life and makes it a rather enjoyable spectacle.

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