SummaryLaced with dark wit, honest inquisition and episodes that are at once surreal and poignant, tragic and absurd, Jarhead is the film adaptation of Marine Anthony Swofford's bracing memoir that took readers into his disorienting firsthand experience in the Gulf War. (Universal)
SummaryLaced with dark wit, honest inquisition and episodes that are at once surreal and poignant, tragic and absurd, Jarhead is the film adaptation of Marine Anthony Swofford's bracing memoir that took readers into his disorienting firsthand experience in the Gulf War. (Universal)
The sum of the movie is devastating. One takes out of it a sense that the human cost of our endless adventure in Iraq is going to be incalculable, perhaps catastrophic -- a psychological time bomb that will be exploding for decades to come.
The result is typical Mendes: accomplished, calculated and uncommitted. Maybe it's because his talent comes to him too easily, but I've yet to sense his heart and soul in a film.
First, I’m a Soldier; not a Marine. Second, I enlisted in 2009; not 1989. So for me, as an Army Soldier who enlisted in 2009 (and am still serving), to be able to relate to this movie is amazing. For all of you “I hope real Marines aren’t that disgusting, horny, and crazy” people out there; guess what, they (we) are. Though I say that, we consider it purely a way to pass the time and keep our sanity; as Jake Gyllenhaal offered clearly in his spill about passing time during the movie. Even amidst all of the modern Army programs such as SHARP and EO, jokes are still administered amongst comrades who have identified themselves as not being bound by an insecure mind state that considers things taboo. There is no taboo in the Army, nor the Marines according to my Marine friends. Anything can be talked about and it’s a fabulous indication of just how resilient and thick-skinned we are. I make **** jokes with my **** comrades, I make racial jokes with my white/Mexican/Asian/etc. comrades, and I make gender jokes with my female comrades; those who make it known that they’re okay with it that is. If I have even the slightest suspicion that someone is uncomfortable about it then I ask them if they are, and if they say yes then I (we) stop. So that’s that part. Another, I’ve served on four deployments (three combat and one operational). I’ve had deployments where I’ve seen firefights, explosions, rockets, mortars, IEDs, death, etc; and I’ve had deployments where I didn’t see anything that would even amount to a firecracker. That’s the way it goes. Of course civilians expect to see guns blazing and a band of honorable brothers/sisters, but welcome to a glimpse of military reality. Soldiers will always have some sort of understanding for civilian life because they were once civilians. It’s well known that civilians don’t understand military life and that’s all that needs to be said about that. I’ll end after my next few statements which will include my actual evaluation of the movie. The drill sergeant in the beginning of the movie was so convincing and made me think of my BCT days at Fort Benning, the speech from that battalion commander when they landed in theater was the kind of speech you hope for and oftentimes get from high-ranking officers who have just the right amount of I-don’t-give-a-f$%k, the introduction of SSG Sykes “LOL” is all I’ll say, the jargon amongst comrades was on point, the sense of losing your mind and track of time was supremely conveyed, and the sense of brotherhood that is built through enduring such a thing was spot on.
how could it be rated 58 by paid critics is crazy, no doubt why it get a 71 from users : it's literally one of the best war movie.
In my opinion, it is as good as a full metal jacket at showing war through the screen. I mean real war, not rambo.
Screenwriter William Broyles, Jr., a former Vietnam pilot and "Newsweek" editor, connects reasonably well with the material, but "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes has a tendency to smooth out the rough edges, and the film goes flat as month-old soda.
While not quite the war movie that many of us were hoping to see right now, Mendes’ dispassionate take on the first Gulf War has many merits, and it does bring vividly to life the peculiar dilemma of the modern soldier.
I like the focus of the movie: it shows the psychology of the characters and doesnt live from the action that will be outdated in many years anyway. So you can watch it today too.
The story is good and shows the modern war of Iraq, I have enough of Vietnam war. Some scenes and even the story reminded to me to Full Metal Jacket, sometimes even too much.
Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone.
As a Hollywood take on the United States’ initial offensive against the dictator commonly referred to here as Saddam Insane, “Jarhead” doesn’t come close to the first one, David O. Russell’s “Three Kings.” Nor does it self-importantly try to offer even covert commentary on what’s going on in Iraq today. Rather, Vietnam vet screenwriter William Broyles Jr. has used Anthony Swofford’s bestselling 2003 tome to create a bemused study of what it was like to be a soldier primed for action in a war in which ground troops were rendered almost irrelevant by air power.
From the outset, Vietnam and movies assert themselves as the primary touchstones for “Jarhead.” You have to look carefully to make sure the opening shot isn’t drawn directly from “Full Metal Jacket,” what with a barracks-full of dogfaces being berated by a vein-busting drill instructor who looks like R. Lee Ermey’s country cousin. But it’s 1989, and the man/boys are being prepped for war on the sizzling sands of the Middle East.
After 20 minutes of basic training, a beautifully rendered fleet of TWA 747s transports the tale to Saudi Arabia, where the men are exhorted to “kick some Iraqi ass” by a gung-ho officer (Chris Cooper). Throughout, global politics and the motives behind the troop buildup lie far in the background, as the film strives to portray a state of being rather than a reason for action.
Once the stage shifts to the promised battleground, “Jarhead” becomes a vaguely existential story of being all dressed up with nowhere to go, about men awaiting chemical warfare and an alleged million-man army while playing football in the sand sporting gas masks, surreptitiously pleasuring themselves and giving each other grief about unfaithful girlfriends and wives.
On a scene-by-scene basis, Mendes and Broyles provide a steady serving of gritty goods, from the lovely monologue by Jamie Foxx, playing a staff sergeant, to haunting shots of the men examining the charred remains of Iraqi soldiers and burning oil wells lighting up the night sky that prompt Swoff to observe that “the Earth is bleeding,” and for some will bring to mind Werner Herzog’s mesmerizing impressionistic docu “Lessons of Darkness.”
After “American Beauty” and “Road to Perdition,” Mendes looks more than ever a veritable chameleon among directors as he stages the action here — and nonaction — with vigor and smarts. But his very caginess helps prevent the film from busting out — with irreverence, outrageousness, penetrating insight, anything — in a way that would give it a full-fledged personality of its own. It’s almost as if the filmmakers were hiding behind a mask of strongly cultivated intelligence that keeps them from genuinely expressing their emotions and gut instincts.
Gyllenhaal is alert and physically very present in a good performance that centers the film, and Foxx is strong in his important secondary role. Otherwise, however, thesping is more ordinary than one has come to expect from a Mendes film.
Ruggedly made pic looks buff and stripped down. Roger Deakins’ lensing is at one with the bleached-out appearance of the sand-colored costumes and settings (pic was shot entirely in North America, in the California and Mexican deserts). Visual effects are seamless, while Thomas Newman’s score is abetted by some musical selections that consciously ape those used in some Vietnam-era dramas.
A film that keeps you thinking the big payoff is just around the corner... then nothing happens. Perhaps this is an intentional analogy of the main character's military life or perhaps the film is just stilted and boring. I felt completely disconnected from the characters and their attempts to convey the emotions of overseas deployment elicited nothing more than a shoulder shrug.