Walking out of the theatre after seeing Jarhead felt a little like walking out of boot camp—although that may have had something to do with the score—or was it that for the past two hours this movie had taken its audience into war and back.

Every Marine has a different story—a different reason why they enlisted, a different purpose for being a part of the U.S. Marine Corps.  Yet all ultimately join to serve their country.

Anthony Swafford is no different.  His story involved parents that weren’t really there for him and a mentally disturbed sister.  While not feeling as though he has any choice but to be a marine, Swafford makes the most of his career path by performing to the best of his abilities to serve his country.

Thrown into a tent-full of misfits upon arrival at boot camp, Swafford is quickly invited by Staff Sergeant Sykes to try out for a scout-sniper position.  Succeeding to this position, Swafford and the rest of his scout-sniper platoon, led by Sykes, are soon called up to active duty and sent overseas.  Following on the heels of Saddam Hussein’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, their deployment is but a small part of Operation: Desert Shield, an initiative to protect the oil fields of the Middle East.

From here Swafford & co. spend the next four months acclimating to life in the desert and showing off for the news crews as President George Bush, Sr. continues to deploy more troops to the Middle East, before the order finally comes through to advance—George Bush’s famous Operation: Desert Storm.

Based on the memoirs of the real Anthony Swafford, Jarhead tells a powerful tale of what life for a marine is like in times of war; made all the more poignant by the fact that the U.S. is again fighting a war on Iraqi soil; now alongside Iraqi troops.

The story is also kept real by bringing up the problems that our troops face overseas including dysfunctional equipment, encountering burned and charred bodies, missing family with babies being born, missing girlfriends, and even discovering a wife or girlfriend is being unfiathful andnot being able to do a thing about it.

Through Swafford’s narration of the film, he explains one of the biggest problems that he came away from the Marine Corps with—the gun.  Both his opening and closing narration for the film describe how he was trained to be a sniper, trained to kill people, and upon returning to civilian life, no matter what his hands do, they will always remember holding his sniper rifle.

Screenwriter William Boyles Jr. and Director Sam Mendes have done well to abate the seriousness of war by interjecting humor into key areas of the film.  While most of the humorous moments do come before Swafford goes on active duty, there are just enough later on to keep the film from becoming depressing.  They have also done a fair job of trying to keep away from the politics of the situation—not an easy task given the setting—and instead simply tell the story as it was for Marine Anthony Swafford.

Jake Gyllenhaal (The Day After Tomorrow; Donnie Darko) turns in a fine performance as Anthony Swafford, as does Jamie Foxx (Ray, Collateral) as Sgt. Sykes.

If you’re a fan of war movies and don’t mind explicit language, then this film is definitely worth your box office bucks.  When the DVD comes out, it also might be worth checking out for any possible interviews with the real Anthony Swafford.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot:  What is a Jarhead?  It’s a term used to refer to marines because their haircuts make their heads resemble a jar.