Details

Attention soldier, Universal Pictures is proud to announce the release of Jarhead, available to own on DVD from 15th May 2006. Starring Oscar® winner Jamie Foxx (Ray, Collateral) and Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain), and directed by Oscar® winner Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road To Perdition), Jarhead is the darkly funny, action-packed screen adaptation of the best-selling autobiography by former US Marine Anthony Swofford. Welcome to the suck.

In 1991, nineteen year old Anthony Swofford (Gyllenhaal) is a third generation marine enlistee. Conceived on a military base in Germany, he maintains the family mantle and enrols at a military training academy with the innate hunger and desire to kill on behalf of the US government.

Having signed up, he is barracked and mocked by his peers and Staff Sergeant Sykes (Foxx), while undergoing a brutal training regime in preparation for the upcoming Gulf War. Swofford quickly excels as a marksman, and is selected to be part of an elite sniper unit where he is paired with redneck country boy Troy (Sarsgaard), before being despatched to Saudi Arabia to adapt to the desert heat, ahead of the imminent conflict with Iraq.

Training in the desert for Operation Desert Shield is not all it's cracked up to be however, and the men begin to realise the action they crave to get involved in may not happen. They hydrate, do push ups, sit around, masturbate, patrol, and then they hydrate some more. They play football, talk to reporters, party and then they hydrate some more. Finally, after spending so much time doing nothing but losing their minds, they get word that Desert Shield is now Desert Storm, and it is finally time to "kick some Iraqi ass".

Once more though, Desert Storm doesn't transpire into the assault they long for. Spending more time wandering around the desert through burning oil fields in search of their elusive kill, they find to their bemusement the war is over in 4 days. The men came to fight another Vietnam, and never pulled a trigger.

Jarhead takes a superb look at the pointlessness of war, through the loneliness and isolation experienced by the marines, rather than fighting and violence. Sam Mendes has created an irreverent and honest account of one man's experience in The Gulf, lacing it with dark humour, stunning action and compelling cinematography. This is a unique vision of The Gulf conflict told through the eyes of a marine sniper who never fired a bullet in anger, a true memoir of a real Jarhead. Ooh-Rah.

Special Features

  • Feature Commentary with Director Sam Mendes
  • Feature Commentary with Screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. & Author Anthony Swofford
  • Swoff's Fantasies - with optional commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch
    • D.I. In A Dress (:52)
    • Fantasy Interview (:55)
    • Exploding Major (2:01)
    • Swoff's Kill (2:19)
  • News Interviews in Full - with optional commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch
  • 11 x Deleted Scenes - offered with 5.1 audio and optional commentary by Director Sam Mendes and Editor Walter Murch
    • Uncle Walt (4:11)
    • Sick Bay (1:21)
    • Mess Hall (:32)
    • Dime Shot (:42)
    • Politics (1:11)
    • Poetry (:52)
    • Arrival at the Rear (:55)
    • Troy and Swoff run (2:14)
    • The Build Up to War (3:17)
    • Troy's Past (1:50)
    • Cortez's Mask (1:52)}