Directed by Sam Mendes, the film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford with Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, Lucas Black, and Chris Cooper.

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.

They even erect a bulletin board featuring annotated photographs revealing what perfidies the women had committed (known in military slang as a "Jodie Wall").

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.

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 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.

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.

"[3] 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.

[4] 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.

[10] Kenneth Turan in his review for the Los Angeles Times wrote: Its polished surfaces and professional style can't compete with the gritty reality conveyed by documentaries like Gunner Palace and Occupation: Dreamland — or, for that matter, by the surreal black comedy of David O. Russell's Three Kings — that show in no uncertain terms what it's like to be a soldier in Iraq.