Sands of Iwo Jima (1950)
Directed by Allan Dwan
Haunted by personal demons, Marine Sgt. John Stryker is hated and feared by his men, who see him as a cold-hearted sadist. But when their boots hit the beaches, they begin to understand the reason for Stryker's rigid form of discipline.
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What critics compared Sands of Iwo Jima to
As movie titles go, Jarhead will always struggle to contend with the romantic sweep of a Sands of Iwo Jima - at least as a Marine Corp recruiting device.
Gyllenhaal does a great job: He's not like Matthew Modine, all smirky irony in "Full Metal Jacket," or Charlie Sheen, all over-educated angst in "Platoon," or John Agar, all innocent patriotism in "Sands of Iwo Jima."
A rousing tale of Pacific War heroism that has more in common with jingoistic Wayne staples such as Sands of Iwo Jima or The Green Berets than anything in the 21st century, this is wearily formulaic film-making that has nonetheless charmed the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences into doling out six Oscar nominations, including some arguably untenable best director and best picture nods.
What we have here is a movie more on par with the John Wayne movie Sands of Iwo Jima, directed by cinema pioneer Allan Dwan, which was made five years after World War II but felt like a propaganda recruitment vehicle.
The film sort of follows the tenor of Sands of Iwo Jima (1949) in which significantly older John Wayne trains a platoon of young men and readies them for war, and they then fight the war.