Jarhead [HD]

One Jarhead's perspective..
I'm a little confused that there's so many user reviews complaining that Jarhead is 'a war movie without any war.' Well.. based on my own experiences as a Marine in our most recent trip to the sandbox, I'd say war without war sounds true to life. Jarhead isn't showing you what you'd like for Marines and servicemen to be; it's showing you what we ARE like. Yes, we're crude, vulgar, irreverent, and largely morally ambivelant. Mostly though, we're bored. 99.9% of war is waiting. Waiting for to go on patrol, waiting for patrol to be over, waiting to go on or off of guard duty, waiting to sleep, to wake up, to eat, to piss, to finally go home. That's how it was for my dad in Vietnam, for my cousins in the Gulf War, and for myself in Iraq last year. To some degree, that's how it's been for everyone, in every war. To quote this film, "Every war is different, every war is the same."

If you've been in the military, and especially if you've been deployed, this should all be...

Underrated and Underappreciated - Welcome to the suck.
Anticipation was high for Jarhead, the cinematic adaptation of Anthony Swifford's book of the same name about his experiences as a U.S. foot soldier in the first Persian Gulf War. The reaction to the movie was underwhelming to say the least as critics savaged it and audiences stayed away. Something was definitely in the air as the film also failed to pick up any nominations or awards at any of the important ceremonies (Golden Globes, Oscars, et al). Was the film really that bad or had it just been marketed wrong? Or, was it simply the victim of our current political climate?

Jarhead is a film filled with striking images captured wonderfully by director of photography Roger Deakins. For example, Swofford and his platoon come across oil wells burning out of control, oil raining down on them. At night, they continue to burn providing the only light, and coupled with downpour of oil, looks like some kind of nightmarish vision of hell.

Critics complained that nothing...

A Day In The Life of
I'm a retired Sergeant First Class from the U.S. Army. I didn't get a chance to see the movie at the theater but I bought the DVD yesterday. Personally I thought it was a great movie. There was a great deal of reality to it. Soldiers, Sailors, Airman or Marine, it matters not. You have some that act totally ignorant in certain situations to help cope with stress while others just deal better with it. I've seen it in many forms over my 21 years of Active Duty. I don't think it shed a bad light on the USMC, because these troops didn't act much differently then some of the Vietnam troops did. If you're a warmonger and want to see a lot of action this is not the movie for you, but if you are interested in the day to day or A Day In The Life of kind of movie that shows how a person or typically a servicemember grows this is the one for you. The language is what it used to be like in the Army until they started changing the regulations. The movie took me back to my Army days. I...

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