Jamie passion and passionfruit!

By the end of this I had been well reminded of ‘Iluminados por el fuego’ the Argentine film about the cannon fodder recruits in the Malvinas.  Here, the fodder are marines in the first Gulf War who are volunteers and who go to the Gulf all hyped up to battle old So damn insane.  150 + days later and still no sign of action.  They are bored stiff, sandy and dirty and demoralised living in tents in the desert.  Fights break out, accidents happen and there is more than a little madness.  When fighting does occur it is over in four days and mostly air to ground missiles and no hand to hand combat.  This film is undeniably ironic and spares no criticism of the unpreparedness of the army chiefs with their friendly fire and contradictory orders given.  And yet, the real victims are these young men who come out scarred in more ways than one.  An intersting film – again not great.  Jake Gyllenhaal holds it together as Swoff, ably supported by Peter Skarsgaard.  Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper both do the trick in supporting roles and Sam Mendes directs with skill as one of his background should.  James Newman adds some decent music too!

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