10 War Films That Broke All The Rules

Directed by American Beauty's Sam Mendes, 2005's Jarhead is nowhere near as potently anti-war as many of the films listed here.

And that's what makes the drama such a subversive example of the genre.

Yes, the balletic violence of Oliver Stone's 1986 Vietnam film Platoon or the passionate rhetoric of the same director's later Born on the Fourth of July are effective methods of condemning America's bloody history of starting wars abroad.

But both films are fuelled by the anger which is so often used to render pro-war propaganda palatable, whereas this Jake Gyllenhall vehicle is mostly about boredom. It's fitting, since the film follows a gulf war veteran who sees little so-called "action", and therefore the protagonist's frustrated disinterest has more in common with most modern veteran's experience of war than earlier, more viscerally impactful depictions of warfare.

Similar to HBO's triumphant miniseries Generation Kill, this film excels by depicting its soldiers as confused would-be heroes with no role to play in a nation where they don't belong, fighting a fight they can't explain and don't know how to defend.