Jarhead

Movie review by Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media
Jarhead Poster Image

Common Sense says

age 18+

Intelligent and bleak; for mature audiences only.

R 2005 123 minutes
Rate movie

Parents say

age 15+

Based on 12 reviews

Kids say

age 16+

Based on 7 reviews

Common Sense is a nonprofit organization. Your purchase helps us remain independent and ad-free.
Rate movie

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

A Lot or a Little?

The parents' guide to what's in this movie.

What Parents Need to Know

Parents need to know that this movie isn't appropriate for kids. It includes frequent scenes of violence, including shooting (at targets and people), hazing rituals, fights, explosions, and grueling training exercises. The film shows frequent images of carcasses (burned and broken along the Gulf war's infamous Highway of Death). Characters curse relentlessly, smoke cigarettes, drink, and do drugs. The troops also engage in frank sex talk (including slang for genitals and masturbation) and gestures; the film includes a brief glimpse at the protagonist's parents in a hotel bed, and scenes from a homemade porn movie (the doggy-style sex act is explicit, without penetration).

Community Reviews

iiFreyja1
iiFreyja1 Adult
June 3, 2020
age 13+

Great Movie

Some of these reviews just don’t make sense. If you were appalled by this movie, then you are a snowflake. Plain and simple. Nobody should make a review on a movie they didn’t watch through its entirety. This movie is about war and therefore contains violence and explicit language and imagery... What did you expect, though? It’s a war movie. It has comedic scenes and serious scenes, but it has an ultimate point to it as well if you pay close enough attention. It teaches a lesson on soldiers with PTSD and how war never changes (i.e, “they’re still in the desert,” “he will always remember the rifle,” “semper fi, marines.”) It touched me and I have watched it more than a few times with family and friends alike, who all also enjoyed the movie.

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models
Too much violence
Too much swearing
1 person found this helpful.
pooprap
pooprap Adult
April 25, 2015
age 14+

Good for adults

If your child has seen other war/violent movies and seen innaproprite images then should be fine if you are interested in joining the military this movie is great for you

This title has:

Too much sex
Too much swearing
Too much drinking/drugs/smoking
See all 12 parent reviews

What's the Story?

Joining the marines, 20-year-old Tony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) seeks sense, maybe a way to fit in. In training camp, he becomes a sniper and learns to dote on his gun. When Swoff and his spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) are sent, along with Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), to the Saudi desert, they're instructed to hydrate and train. Days and days and days they wait. They play football, drink, spit prefab answers for the press, and erect a Wall of Shame to their cheating girlfriends back home to survive the monotony, as they also anticipate the worst. Macho and childish at the same time, they can't imagine the horrors they will behold. At last, they're sent to a battleground that's been decimated by the awesome U.S. air war. Traipsing through the desert until they come on what became known as the Highway of Death, they look out on charred vehicles and corpses, the top layer of sand burned black beneath their boots.

Is It Any Good?

Adapted from Anthony Swofford's 2003 memoir, Jarhead is a frankly intelligent and beautifully bleak war movie with very little conventional "war" in it. It focuses on the ways that authorities rationalize war "scenarios" and train troops to carry out orders that are, on their face, irrational and costly. The movie depicts the "conflict" as an endless series of traumas that will continue to afflict Swoff and his fellows long after they're "home." The problem with war, according to Jarhead, is precisely that it's endless.

In the horrific Highway of Death scene, Swoff is shown sitting near the dead man, so that each appears in foreground and background, as if they are conversing. The effect is more harrowing than any battle sequence, underlining Jarhead's anguished point: war is not heroic or rousing. It is only devastating.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

  • Families can talk about the conventional reasons for war, the ways that young men posture for one another in order to prove their "masculine" identities, and defining "enemies" by their differences. How does Tony's experience in the Saudi desert not meet his expectations -- of glory, mission, and camaraderie? How is Tony, as a precise, ground-based sniper, shown to be outmoded by overwhelming air-war technologies?

Movie Details

Our Editors Recommend

  • Three Kings Poster Image

    Three Kings

    Violent, liberal George Clooney Gulf War caper.

    age 16+
  • Full Metal Jacket Poster Image

    Full Metal Jacket

    Extremely graphic, violent Vietnam War film.

    age 18+

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate