Jarhead

Further pre-Academy Award movie viewing was interrupted last night when Plotnik and Ducknik stumbled on "Jarhead," which was just starting on HBO before Plotnik could switch to Channel One and On Demand.

Holy macaroni, what a scary, involving film. A screenplay adaptation of a searingly honest and beautifully written memoir by Marine Lance Corporal Anthony Swofford, it tells the story of a troop of Marines, first in training, then in the endless waiting of Desert Shield and finally their extremely brief action in Desert Storm. While the grunts long to get a chance to use all their training, most never even fire their rifles, as the jets roar overhead and extinguish every target as well as every other piece of life for a hundred miles in every direction.



This film is in your face, but that's the whole point -- that men who go through this kind of training are never really alive in the same way again after the war is over. The narration about what his rifle means to a Marine is startling but makes perfect sense.

This may be a guy's film. But that'll be a shame -- there's a lot here.

Jake Gyllenhall is a fantastic actor, and you get Peter Saarsgard, Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper too. Plotnik is still thinking about this one this morning.