Jarhead (film)

Jarhead is a 2005 biographical drama military film based on U.S. Marine Anthony Swoffords 2003 memoir of the same name, directed by Sam Mendes, starring Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford with Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard and Chris Cooper. The title comes from the slang term used to refer to United States Marines.

After grueling training, the Scout Sniper course is left with eight candidates, among them Swofford, now a sniper, and Swoffords roommate Corporal Alan Troy Peter Sarsgaard who becomes his spotter. When Iraq invades Kuwait, Swoffords unit is deployed to the Arabian Peninsula as a part of Operation Desert Shield. Eager for combat, the Marines find themselves bored with remedial training, constant drills, and a routine monotony that feeds their boredom, and prompts them to talk about the unfaithful girlfriends and wives waiting for them at home. They even erect a bulletin board featuring photographs and brief notes telling what perfidies the women had committed.Swofford obtains unauthorized alcohol and organizes an impromptu Christmas party, arranging for Fergus Brian Geraghty 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, who demotes Swofford from lance corporal to private and puts him on shitburning detail. The punishments, combined with the heat, the boredom, and Swoffords suspicions of his girlfriends infidelity, give Swofford a mental breakdown, to the point where he threatens Fergus with a rifle, then orders Fergus to shoot him instead. ........

Source: Wikipedia