Jarhead 2: Field of Fire

Plot

In 1989, Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, whose father served in the earlier Vietnam War (1955–1975), attends United States Marine Corps recruit training before being stationed at Camp Pendleton, California. Claiming that he joined the military because he "got lost on the way to college", Swofford finds his time at Camp Pendleton difficult and struggles to make friends. Although Swofford feigns illness to avoid his responsibilities, a "lifer", Staff Sergeant Sykes, takes note of his potential and offers Swofford an opportunity to attend his competitive Scout Sniper course.

After gruelling training, eight Marines graduate: among them Swofford, now a sniper, and Swofford's roommate Corporal Alan Troy, who becomes his spotter. When Kuwait is invaded by Iraq, Swofford's unit is deployed to Saudi Arabia as a part of "Operation Desert Shield" in the Gulf War (1990–1991). Eager for combat, the Marines find themselves bored with their remedial training, constant drills, and routine responsibilities. The monotony prompts many to talk about the unfaithful girlfriends and wives waiting for them at home. They even erect a bulletin board featuring annotated photographs revealing what perfidies the women had committed (known in military slang as a "Jodie Wall").

Swofford obtains unauthorized alcohol and organizes an impromptu Christmas party, arranging for Fergus to cover his watch so he can celebrate. Fergus accidentally sets fire to a tent while cooking some sausages and ignites a crate of flares, waking the whole camp and enraging Staff Sergeant Sykes. Afterwards, rather than assign blame to Fergus, Swofford accepts full responsibility for the incident. Consequently, Swofford is demoted from lance corporal to private and receives latrine duty as punishment, which involves burning human waste from the camp with diesel fuel. The punishments, combined with the heat, the boredom, and Swofford's suspicions of his girlfriend's infidelity, give Swofford a mental breakdown, to the point where he threatens Fergus with an M16 rifle and then demands that Fergus shoot him.

Later, Operation Desert Storm begins and the Marines are sent to the Kuwait–Saudi Arabia border. Swofford learns from Sykes that Troy concealed his criminal record when enlisting and will be discharged when the unit returns home. Troy becomes distant from his friends. Knowing that Troy will not be allowed to reenlist, the Marines attack him with a red-hot USMC branding iron, marking him as one of their own. Following an accidental air attack from friendly forces, the Marines advance through the desert, facing no enemies on the ground. The Marines march through the infamous "Highway of Death" (on the northbound road leading back to Iraq from capital Kuwait City), strewn with the burnt vehicles and charred bodies of retreating Iraqi soldiers, the aftermath of a bombing campaign. The Marines later catch sight of distant burning Kuwaiti oil wells, ignited only moments before by retreating Iraqis, and they attempt to dig sleeping holes as a rain of crude oil falls from the sky. Before they can finish, Sykes orders the squad to move upwind.

Near the end of the war, Swofford and Troy are finally given a sniping mission. Lieutenant Colonel Kazinski, their battalion commander, orders them to kill at least one of two high-ranking Iraqi Republican Guard officers at a nearby airfield. At the last second before Swofford takes the shot, Major Lincoln interrupts them to call in an air strike. Troy desperately pleads to make a kill, but is denied and overruled as the airplanes destroy the Iraqi airfield, much to his and Swofford's disappointment. The war ends without Swofford ever firing his rifle. During a monologue, Swofford realizes that all of his training and effort to achieve the elite status as a marine sniper is meaningless in modern warfare.

The Marines return home on a transport bus which is boarded by a Vietnam-era Marine veteran who congratulates them, to their obvious discomfort. They later parade through a town in a jovial celebration of victory. Swofford returns home to his family and girlfriend but his girlfriend's infidelity is confirmed. Fowler is seen with a prostitute in a bar, now as a Corporal, Kruger in a corporate boardroom, Cortez as a father of three children, Escobar as a supermarket employee and Sykes continuing his service as a first sergeant in the Iraq War. Later, Swofford learns of Troy's death during a surprise visit from Fergus. At Troy's funeral, they reunite with former comrades.

Reception

Box office

Jarhead grossed $27.7 million domestically during its opening weekend, ranking second behind Chicken Little. The film went on to gross $62.7 million in the United States and Canada and $34.4 million internationally for a worldwide total of $97.1 million.

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 60% based on 197 reviews. The site's consensus states: "This first-person account of the first Gulf War scores with its performances and cinematography but lacks an emotional thrust." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 58 out of 100, based on 40 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale.

Roger Ebert gave the movie three-and-a-half out of four stars, crediting it for its unique portrayal of Gulf War Marines who battled boredom and a sense of isolation rather than enemy combatants. Entertainment Weekly magazine gave the film a "B+" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote:

Jarhead isn't overtly political, yet by evoking the almost surreal futility of men whose lust for victory through action is dashed, at every turn, by the tactics, terrain, and morality of the war they're in, it sets up a powerfully resonant echo of the one we're in today.

In his review for the Washington Post, Stephen Hunter praised Jake Gyllenhaal's performance: "What's so good about the movie is Gyllenhaal's refusal to show off; he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others and is content, for long stretches, to serve simply as a prism through which other young men can be observed". Sight and Sound magazine's Leslie Felperin wrote, "If nothing else, Jarhead provides some kind of reportage of a war whose consequences we haven't yet begun to understand, a war now elbowed into history by its still-raging sequel". In a two-and-a-half out of five review, Ty Burr of The Boston Globe stated that "the film evokes Three Kings, Full Metal Jacket, Catch-22, and other touchstones of the genre without ever establishing its own identity". USA Today gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, "What we're left with is solid if not exceptional, though it's good to see Mendes expanding as a filmmaker". TIME magazine's Richard Schickel wrote, "But the best war movies—and this one, despite its being overlong and repetitive, is among them—hold that men fight (or in this case, are ready to fight) not for causes, but to survive and to help their comrades do the same".

However, in his review for The New York Times, A. O. Scott felt that the film was "full of intensity with almost no real visceral impact", and called it "a minor movie about a minor war, and a film that feels, at the moment, remarkably irrelevant". Kenneth Turan in his review for the Los Angeles Times wrote:

Controversy

In a November 2005 New York Times article, David Carr noted that war veteran and writer Joel Turnipseed felt that parts of the film's plot had been taken from his 2002 book Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir without his consent. Jarhead screenwriter William Broyles Jr. said many similarities arise from the retelling of common Marine experiences.

Department of Defense rejected the script, because it "did not meet D.O.D. requirements".

Sequels

The film was followed by three direct-to-video sequels: Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (2014), Jarhead 3: The Siege (2016) and Jarhead: Law of Return (2019). All three sequels are fictional and unrelated to the original film.