Jarhead is aptly titled because it is not really about the Gulf War, American politics or snipers. It is about the Marine Corps, and what it means to live and die as a “Jarhead” – Marine Corps members’ self-given nicknames, alluding to their high, tight haircuts.

Adapted from his best-selling 2003 novel, the film is told through the narration and perspective of Marine Anthony “Swoff” Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal). It follows the 20-year-old Swoff from intense and abusive training camp (where he tells an officer he is there because “Sir, I got lost on my way to college, Sir!”) to the dizzying deserts of Saudi Arabia. Swoff’s journey effectively presents the audience with the vicissitudes of Marine life.

His elite sniper unit is one of the first sent overseas when Iraq invades Kuwait in 1990. Months pass with little action as Swoff and his fellow Marines train and wait in triple-digit heat, staging scorpion fights and wondering if their girlfriends and wives are being faithful back home.

This setting and interaction comprises the bulk of the movie, and it works. The tedious pre-combat desert phase is more fun to watch than Operation Desert Storm. It is a testament to director Sam Mendes and his cinematographic and composing team, who have put together a beautiful film in the dark-but-humorous vain of his 1999 Oscar-winner, American Beauty.

Gyllenhaal, meanwhile, proves he can carry a film. After acclaim in Donnie Darko and The Good Girl, he finally breaks through in a mainstream film that isn’t doomed by natural disasters. With help from strong supporting performances by Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard, he shows the audience that soldiers are not machines, but often confused and vulnerable human beings with breaking points. Even if they are Jarheads. m