Jarhead Widescreen Edition

Product Description Academy Award winner Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal star in this critically acclaimed, brilliantly unconventional war story from Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes. Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows Swoff (Gyllenhaal) from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he sports a sniper rifle through Middle East deserts that provide no cover from the heat or Iraqi soldiers. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fully grasp. Bonus Content: Swoff's Fantasies (With Optional Commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch) News Interviews In Full (With Optional Commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch Deleted Scenes (With Optional Commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch) Feature Commentary with Director Sam Mendes Feature Commentary with Screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. and Author Anthony Swofford Amazon.com Based on Anthony Swofford?s excellent memoir about his experiences as a Marine Sniper in Gulf War I, Jarhead is a war movie in which the waiting is a far greater factor upon the characters than the war itself, and the build up to combat is more drama than what combat is depicted. To some viewers hoping for typical movie action, this will seem like a cruel joke. But it?s not. It?s just the story as it was written, and if you liked the book, you will probably like the movie. If you didn?t, then the movie won?t change your mind. The movie follows the trajectory of Swofford (played with thoughtful intensity by Jake Gyllenhaal) from wayward Marine recruit (he joined because he "got lost on the way to college") to skilled Marine sniper, and on into the desert in preparation for the attack on Iraq. No-nonsense, Marine-for-life Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx), the man who recruited Swofford and his spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) into the sniper team, leads them in training, and in waiting where their lives are dominated by endless tension, pointless exercises in absurdity (like playing football in the scorching heat of the desert in their gas masks so it will look better for the media?s TV cameras), more training, and constant anticipation of the moment to come when they?ll finally get to kill. Whe