Jarhead
Has every great war movie that was ever possible already been made?? Certainly Apocalypse Now in 1979 set the bar so high that itâs obviously clear it will never be topped, and pretty much every war movie made in the last 10 to 15 years has mostly been crap (Hurt Locker notwithstanding), full of political diatribes or pointless stories that try but fail to evoke the heights of Coppolaâs Grand Masterpiece. This 2005 movie features these issues to a tee, based on the alleged military experiences of Anthony Swofford, a guy who wanted nothing more than to join the Marines and kill an enemy in combat, only to get sent over to serve in the first Gulf War (Desert Storm) in 1991, spending most of his time waiting with his fellow Marines to see ANY kind of action and going nearly stir crazy with boredom in the process, and just when it seemed like he was going to see some action, the surgical air strikes conducted by The U.S. Air Force meant the war was over and that he finished up his duty without firing a shot. Even worse, the final scenes try to indicate that Swofford was somehow SCARRED by the experience, leading this viewer to believe that this guy (and most of the other characters) wouldnât have lasted more than ten minutes in the real shit, which led to him writing the book upon which the movie is based, which ultimately comes across as saying that serving overseas in the military just sucks so bad that the best decision for most wanna be grunts would be to not bother even enlisting (even his most traumatic experience turns out to be his old girlfriend back home breaking up with him via mail). Director Sam Mendes early on in the film seems content with making constant (and blatant) references to Stanley Kubrickâs Full Metal Jacket, and most of the film basically details the soldiers doing little more than goofing off in the barracks, right down to the unnecessary sight of Jake Gyllenhaalâs Swofford dancing around while wearing a thong during a Christmas party. It was also admitted later on by Swofford that much of the events of the story were either embellished and / or were based on common urban legends that circulate around the Marine Corps, like when one soldier gets a videotape from home and pops it in only to find his wife screwing another man (a major theme of the movie is the soldierâs paranoia about their wives or girlfriends doing such a thing) or a hazing process that involves six marines holding down a new recruit and literally branding him with the USMC symbol. Gyllenhaal as Swofford ultimately gets very little to do except when he snaps and threatens a fellow Marine who had gotten him in trouble by sticking the barrel of a rifle in his mouth, but there are a couple of good performances in the mix, namely Peter Sarsgaard as Swoffordâs best friend who retains a potted philosophical attitude about going into combat, and Jamie Foxx as the Staff Sergeant and commanding officer whom, without shame or irony, expresses his love for the military life so much so that he gave up a lucrative career in the family business so that he can get out on the front lines kicking ass and taking names, plus we also get Dennis Haysbert and Chris Cooper in extended cameos as superior officers making the most of their screen time as a result. The rest of the cast, though, wind up being little more than tired archetypes, including The Redneck, The Nerd, and The Gung Ho Loudmouth. In the end though, when you take out the themes of âwar is hellâ and âwhy are we here?â in a war movie, and try to make something like this which is one manâs personal account of serving and having a perceived negative experience because he basically sat around and did nothing, the story ultimately exposes itself as shallow and pointless, not so much as coming across as an anti-war movie but more of an anti-military movie, sure to offend anyone whoâs ever been proud to serve and bore to death everyone else like the main character himselfâŚ
5/10