iF Rating: 7/13

Director: Sam Mendes

Runtime: 115 min

Certification: (15)

Biography of Anthony Swofford

Title: Jarhead

Release Date: 4 November 2005

Sub-Genre: War

Awards: 1 win & 9 noms

Copyrights: Universal Pictures

Info: Set during the Gulf War, the episodic tale follows Anthony Swofford (a.k.a. “Swoff”), a third-generation enlistee, from his sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he’s sporting a sniper’s rifle and a hundred-pound ruck sack on his back, while moving through Middle East deserts with no cover from the intolerable heat. As well, he advances with no protection from the Iraqi soldiers–and there’s always a potential enemy sighting, just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves on humor and camaraderie as they tread the blazing desert fields in a country they don’t understand, against an enemy they can’t see, for a cause they don’t fully fathom.