The Jarheads of the title are a group of young and relatively inexperienced Marines facing their first real combat in the Iraqi war. Sam Mendes' film deals with some familiar dilemmas of the modern battle field, namely; ‘who exactly am I fighting and why?', a question compounded by a heady mixture of fear and the desire to shoot someone. The first hour and a bit is about their confusion and increasing disgruntlement with the lack of clarity of their orders and how tedious the almost 4 months they spent waiting in the desert was. And what a borish bunch these men are! The end, staggering through night scenes lit by burning oil wells and stumbling through a burnt out convoy of Iraqi civilian (?) vehicles with its charred bodies, is extremely poetic and affecting. Based on true memoirs, Jarhead is a strong, darkly humouress look at war, with an impressive cast and some equally impressive visuals… but no revelations.