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Jarhead [2005]
from Universal Pictures Video
starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Wade Williams, Matthew Atherton, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard
directed by Sam Mendes

Features:

• PAL

Editorial Review:

Based on Anthony Swofford’s excellent memoir about his experiences as a Marine Sniper in Gulf War I, Jarhead is a war movie in which the waiting is a far greater factor upon the characters than the war itself, and the build up to combat is more drama than what combat is depicted. To some viewers hoping for typical movie action, this will seem like a cruel joke. But it’s not. It’s just the story as it was written, and if you liked the book, you will probably like the movie. If you didn’t, then the movie won’t change your mind.

The movie follows the trajectory of Swofford (played with thoughtful intensity by Jake Gyllenhaal) from wayward Marine recruit (he joined because he "got lost on the way to college") to skilled Marine sniper, and on into the desert in preparation for the attack on Iraq. No-nonsense, Marine-for-life Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx), the man who recruited Swofford and his spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) into the sniper team, leads them in training, and in waiting where their lives are dominated by endless tension, pointless exercises in absurdity (like playing football in the scorching heat of the desert in their gas masks so it will look better for the media’s TV cameras), more training, and constant anticipation of the moment to come when they’ll finally get to kill. When the war does come, it moves too fast for Swofford’s sniper team, and the one chance they get at a kill--to do the one thing they’ve trained so hard and waited so long for--eludes them, leaving them to wonder what was the point of all they had endured.

As directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty), the movie remains very loyal to the language and vision of the book, but it doesn’t entirely work as the film needs something more than a literal translation to bring out its full potential. Mendes’ stark and, at times, apocalyptic visuals add a lot and strike the right tone: wide shots of inky-black oil raining down on the vast, empty desert from flaming oil wells contrasted with close-ups of crude-soaked faces struggling through the mire vividly bring to life the meaning of the tagline "welcome to the suck." But much of the second half of the movie will probably leave some viewers feeling disappointed in the cinematic experience, while others might appreciate its microcosmic depiction of modern chaos and aimlessness. Jarhead is one of those examples where the book is better than the movie, but not for lack of trying. --Dan Vancini

Customer Reviews:

• Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0

• War Movie with a difference
  Jarhead starts out in boot camp with new recruits and a sadistic drill instructor - and you think you know what is coming next. Bonding, heroism and death in the heat of battle. But that is not how Jarhead goes.
  Instead what we get is a realistic(ish) view of the experience a youg marine in the period leading up to and including the first gulf war. We see young men driven half crazy with boredom and frustration as they wait for the war to start. It is an unjudgemental film that is uncomfortable viewing... more info

• The "intelligent" war film
  "Gripping, intelligent and amazing" is the pull quote on the back of the DVD sleeve and it's the closest opinion to my own.
  If you want an all action war film, this won't be at the top of your lift. Jarhead is one of the only (in my brief viewing of the many war films out there) 'intelligent' war films out there thanks to it being based on the main character's personal experience in the Gulf.
  The casting is spot on with Jake Gyllenhaal in the role of Swoff, whose face looks every part a seasoned... more info

• intertresting
  decent film that is boring and slow moving in places but overall is decent entertainment and is worth watching

• Conventional anti-war flick
  Read the book. That was great. This film didn't work. I knew what to expect. I wasn't expecting an action movie. So it wasn't that. I think this film was doomed to failure because its raison d'etre is to depict the life of a soldier to be an uneventful slog, mostly boring. In that sense it is too ambitious. The thing is, you can have an uneventful book because you can get right into the minds of the characters, you have the author's internal monologue, but a movie is visual. Things have to happen to... more info

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