Jarhead

Screenwriter William Broyles Jr. had his work cut out for him: molding a story from Anthony Swafford’s nearly plotless account of being a Marine sniper in Operation Desert Storm, working with characters that come and go like catnap dreams, and then living with Swafford’s argument that all war films are pro-war ads for young men, because the “magic brutality of the films celebrates the terrible and despicable beauty of their fighting skills. Filmic images of death and carnage are pornography to the military man.” Ouch. With that in mind, the movie’s tagline, “Welcome to the Suck,” takes on new meaning to the idealistic, virile young man.