I finally finished seeing this film. The first time I got food poisoned and had to leave after half an hour much to the chagrin to me and my girlfriend, but vomiting all over the other guests wouldn’t have ingratiated me too well, and I was getting really dizzy!

This film totally rocks. A modern film about a man going to war, after choosing to join the Marine’s and realizing he may have made a wrong choice, and yet wanting the war so badly it hurts, and then not really having his own war, and yet being completely changed by it, without firing a single shot in anger. Based on a 2003 book by the same name, this film is fantastic. Showing the mentality of the volunteer army, and the people who join it to defend their nation, weather that means fighting in other countries that are no threat to the US, or defending their home turf. These are war machines, trained to kill and be killed, and wanting nothing more than to go head to head with the enemy, even if they don’t believe what they are fighting for.

And a good commentary on modern times, since the ground war in Operation Desert Storm lasted a mere 4 and a half days, and the current ground war in Iraq is still going on after 2 years with no end in sight. It seems obvious W was looking for the same thing, but never planned on any resistance after the war, expecting an easy win, and huge oil fields to call our own.

REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS…

Jake Gyllenhaal, who I have loved since I saw him in Donny Darky plays Anthony Swofford in this adaption of the non-fiction book of the same name. He joins the marines instead of going to college in 1989 and quickly realizes he made a mistake, ending up in a unit for losers led by a corporal named Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) and does everything he can to stay away from duty, until a Staff Seargant Sykes (Jamie Foxx) gets him to try for a Sinper unit, and out of 60 men he is one of 8 who makes it, one of 4 shooters to their spotters, with Troy as his spotter. The trained killers watch Apocalypse Now and get off watching the Air Cav kill the enemy, but the film is stopped because they are being called to Saudi Arabia for operation desert shield, to protect the country from Iraq who has invade Kuwait, and end up waiting over 100 days for the attack of Iraq, going crazy. Masturbating and getting in trouble. Swofford has a girlfriend at home, but she is moving away from him, and they even see a video of a friend’s wife fucking someone else, which spurns him on. Then he gets demoted because he lets another take his patrol on Christmas and gets wasted, but the one he made do his duty fucks up and alights a whole box of flares. He freaks out and almost kills the friend who was taking his duty, then almost gets him to kill himself, he has lost it. Sykes makes them play football in their chemical gear for journalists, but they strip and simulate sex, and get punished for their actions as they know they will. And Swof learns his friend Troy is getting kicked out of the suck (the Marines) for having a criminal record that he lied about. Then they go to war.

Their war is strange. These Snipers head off on foot into a war dominated by air power, and run into a burned out convoy of what looks likes civilians, and they hit the burning oil fields where it is raining oil. Swof and Troy are finally given a mission to kill the 2 leaders of a large group of republican guards, but just as they take are ready to take their shots, in walks a major who is calling in an air strike, and they don’t even get their one shot. They realize they got no pickup and wander back towards their men, thinking they have run into republican guards, but instead it is their platoon celebrating the end of the war, and not one shot in anger, and the only blood on their side caused by the Warthogs that mistook them for Iraqis. So they party and fire their guns in the air, and return home heroes, and changed men. Swof gets out and the man he threatened comes and finds him to tell him Troy is dead.

Really a sad and amazing film about going to war, and fighting for ones country. Amazingly well done, without going into the politics of the war (well except one marine who does question who is going on), just going into the lives of these brave men who volunteered to serve their country and went to war in Iraq in the first Gulf War. Some want to stay in forever and some want to get out as soon as they can.

I just watched the DVD, though not the commentaries as of yet. Their are quite a few deleted scenes, most of which I am happy are gone though a few add a bit that might have been god in the film. Still I think the cut is good as it stands. A good and disturbing look at war. Interesting to note the differences between then and now, especially with the fact that the soldiers never get to leave now, while they only fought for 4 days in the first gulf war, and that wasn’t a soldiers war, while the current way is really a soldiers war. It is the soldiers that are dyeing every day in Iraq.