"Jarhead" follows the lead of Anthony Swofford's 2003 Gulf War battlefield memoir in sticking with the grunts on the ground. In adapting Swofford's book, writer William Broyles Jr. and director Sam Mendes confront but never entirely resolve a problem inherent in sticking to this viewpoint. The filmmakers clearly wanted to avoid the politics surrounding the first Gulf War even as they pay tribute to the Marines, the jarheads, who went to Saudi Arabia to fight.

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