Toby McGuire totally miscast

Golden Globe nomination.

That should be answer enough.

It depends if you want realism or not in a film.

You seem to be confusing 'movie' marines with real ones. While - admittedly - they could have chosen an actor that looks the part more (according to audience expectations) if they were going to be more Hollywood about it, in reality there would be a bunch of guys in his position that don't look too dissimilar.

By way of illustration, an older friend of mine is in the special forces, and is now a senior that trains others and occasionally still does tours. He is a slim, wiry guy that would disappear into a crowd. And yet he trains and commands a heap of other men under him.

Appearances can be deceiving when reality and idealism have a fender bender down outside the corner store.



'Then' and 'than' are completely different words and have completely different meanings.

I say its a realistic potrayal. I serve in the Army as Combat Engineer, been deployed and worked with all branches(except USCG). Due to the nature of our job in Afghanistan(Route Clearance and Breaching support for Infantry) I work more with Soldiers and Marines. Did some RCP with Marines in Kandahar, and your typical Marine Officer is young, muscular but lean. The baby face is spot on, officers are usually younger than the Joes they command as far as captains and Lts go.

Combat Arms Soldiers/Marines and Special Forces guys are usually skinny as well. It's the nature of our job, we are strong and muscular but not that bodybuilding Arnold *beep* Hollywood portrays. We need to be more conditioned to patrol/fight over long distances and move quickly over long durations. The buffest guys are usually the POGs who don't ever leave the wire so spend all of their free time in the gym.

My 2¢

Do you know any actual marines?

Soldiers in every rank have everyday-faces.

Why is Tobey Maguire miscast in this movie?
He plays brilliant, and absolutely believable in this extreme situations.

But it's just another movie which shows the unneccesarity of war and the US-army in foreign countries.

There should be no soldier brainwashed to "serve his country" for some people in the governments of the nations.

Another example, why war is madness.

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From Vienna, Austria
This explains my cheesy English. ;)
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I thought he done a good job

Russell Crowe? Granted this is 7 years after the OP, but I think even in 2009 Russell was getting chubby and too old to play a marine and young father.