Movie Reviews

He’s a Jar(head)

Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Road to Perdition) directs Jake Gyllenhaal (Donnie Darko, Brokeback Mountain) in this adaptaion of Anthony Swofford’s excellent bio, Jarhead.  A war movie without a war, Jarhead’s excellent cast and great cinematography save this film from being a waste of time, but you’ll find yourself playing ‘what war movie was that from’ quite a bit in between the good bits.  Whether Mendes is adrift in a film that lacks an internal life for it’s lead, or whether he’s unable to find a cinematic language to fill in for Swafford’s astoundingly good (and unfilmable) prose, Jarhead is yet another movie where one is left with a ‘what was the point of that’ feeling. 

Jarhead
3 & 1/2 Stars

The first Gulf War seems an unlikely topic for cinematic review, as nothing much happened that could carry a traditional war film.  David O. Russell’s excellent Three Kings pulled it off by using the conflict to jump into a heist film, and a black comedy, but Sam Mendes’ latest effort, Jarhead, seems unable to tread any ground that hasn’t already been paved.  I remember my first reaction to hearing that Anthony Swofford’s Marine life memoir was being given the Hollywood treatment being roughly ‘How the hell are they going to make that book into a movie?”, but I’m sad to say that neither myself of Mendes seemed to come up with a good answer to that.

An almost ridiculously buff Jake Gyllenhaal takes on the role of Swoff, a young, bright individual that inexplicitly makes the decision to join the Marine Corps; an act which eventually lands him in Kuwait as a sniper in a conflict fought more with heavy artillery.  His squadmates are a collection of barely functioning time bombs, his staff seargant (Jamie Foxx in that most trite of roles: the gruff leader) is somewhere between his mentor and his tormentor, and all Swoff can think about is either killing some Iraqis, or his faraway girlfriend, who may or may not be cheating on him.  Needless to say, the waiting game of war and the surrealness of military life combine to unsettle Swoff to the point of near madness.

For a film whose trailer is chock full of explosions and guns, 99% of Jarhead is simply an account of the minutiae and infinite bordedom that fills the life of a soldier deployed in a conflict that has no use for him.  While that might make for an interesting study of a man, ultimately we’re locked out of Swoff’s life and internal process.  A suprising result, considering the flashbacks and narration that pepper the film.  At the end of it’s running time, we know no more about Gyllenhaal’s character than we did in the beginning beyond the anecedotal details of various moments of his life.  He’s a closed book, leaving us to scratch our heads in bewilderment over his oscillations from smart-ass slacker, to blood thirsty killer, to suicidal loon, and back again.  While his body is ridiculously buff (a fact not unexplored by the film;  He’s half naked for goodly chunks of it, and full-on frontal naked for a scene), Gyllenhaal’s boyish face and deep-set eyes hide his internal process from curious on-lookers. 

Peter Sarsgaard (another facial cipher) has what should be the more interesting role as a quietly dignified man defined by an organization that doesn’t want him, but he’s given only a single scene in which to shine (and shine he does).  The rest of the cast is an interchangable mix of war movie stereotypes which, while a little trite, probably represent an accurate cross-section of our modern enlisted man.  Jamie Foxx is another character given nothing to do, but is further saddled with a colorless and thankless role, leading one to wonder why he signed on to the project in the first place. 

That’s not to say that Jarhead is without it’s charms or merits.  There are more than a few moments of comedic gold, but once the laugh dies down it’s difficult to not go through the mental checklist of war movie moments.  Full Metal Jacket?  Three Kings?  Just like Ragu, it’s in there.  And so on and so on.  It’s a hard game to escape from when even the film itself seems to be playing along, with it’s multiple references to Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.  While it’s charms are many, it’s just hard to care much about what’s going on.  Much life Desert Storm itself, the film teases us with the potential for more, but repeatedly fails to deliver anything of substance.

 

More than anything I’m disappointed by Jarhead because I simply wanted to like it more than I did.  Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard are exceptionally talented actors, but can’t work past the limitations of the script.  The film is beautifully shot, but what’s the point if what’s show ultimately leads us no where?  Do we really need another movie to tell us that war fucks up it’s participants?  I’m not sure many of us haven’t already learned that lesson.  The film posits itself as apolitical, but there’s blatent messages to be found in everything from the dialogue of the soldiers to the text telling us how many troops have been deployed.  Perhaps this is the logical result of a generation of filmmakers who have not experienced war themselves.

In the end, this is a film to see for the performances, not the story.  It’s enjoyable, but eventually it’ll fade from memory, leaving only the vague impressions. 

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Saw & Saw II

  • Title: Saw
  • IMDb: link

I just saw Saw. I saw Saw II first, which prompted me to see Saw as a bit of “research” for what would hopefully be a “well-written” review of Saw’s sequel, Saw II. If you saw Saw, then you may or may not want to see Saw II too. Cos’ I just found out that Saw is much better than Saw II. Sorry to burst horror movie fans’ bubbles, but it’s what we do best here at Razorfine.

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The Weather Man

  • Title: The Weather Man
  • IMDb: link

The Weather Man is an intriguing little piece of cinema.  It has wondrous, hysterical, moving, and thought provoking moments and yet the film is somehow less than all the great pieces put together.  It’s a hard movie for me to review, because so much of it I enjoyed, and yet not all of it fits together as well as I’d like.  It’s definatly worth taking a look at, and it’s one of those movies that will become highly quotable, yet I left feeling like it was just slightly unfinished.

David Spritz (Nicholas Cage) is on the fast track to success.  He works as the weather man for a local Chicago affiliate and has a good chance to snag the national job on hugely popular morning program with Bryant Gumbel (playing himself).

Yet with all this success David is unhappy.  He is separated from his wife Noreen (Hope Davis), who is dating a dildo named Russ (Michael Rispoli), and alienated from his two kids, Mike (Nicholas Hoult) and Shelly (Gemmenne de la Pena), who are both sliding into unhappy lives of their own.  David is also dealing with the poor health of his father Robert (Michael Cane) who is the paragon of success that David has never been able to measure up to his entire life.

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Zorro Part Deux

  • Title: The Legend of Zorro
  • IMDb: link

Way back in 1998 Zorro, the sword wielding, bullwhip snappin’, hero to the downtrodden of California, returned to the big screen in The Mask of Zorro.  Now 7 years later a sequel has finally been made.  So how is it?  Well if you liked the first one you’ll probably enjoy this one as well.

Zorro (Antonio Banderas) has been swashbuckling his way through California as the champion of the people.  California is in the final stages of joining the United States of America, and as promised Zorro is looking to retire.  But wait, there is still evil afoot; despite the insistence of his wife Elena (Catherine Zeta-Jones) our hero cannot bring himself to hang up the mask.

The villains looking to stop California’s induction into the Union include a duke who is also a knight of a forgotten order and former flame of Elena’s Armand (Rufus Sewell), and dirty rotten good fer nuthin’ killer McGivens (Nick Chinlund) and his seemingly never ending posse of nameless thugs with guns and swords.  There’s also a Confederate officer and a plot to help the South win the Civil War, the Pinkertons, Elena as a spy….(yawn) um, never mind.

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Capote

  • Title: Capote
  • IMDb: link

Capote is the latest biographical film that provides a wonderful juicy role for an actor, this time for Philip Seymour Hoffman.  The film is well shot and pieced together, and cleverly cast with great performances.  Yet….there is something missing.  Although this is a very good film, almost completely overshadowed by Hoffman’s performance, it never becomes the great film it aspires to be.

The film looks at Truman Capote (Philip Seymour Hoffman) during his period of researching and writing his nonfiction novel In Cold Blood.  Traveling to Kansas with him is his friend and confidant Harper Lee (Catherine Keener).  Capote interviews the town sheriff Alvin Dewey (Chris Cooper) and his family about the murder of a local family.

Two men are arrested and charged for the crime, Perry Smith (Clifton Collins Jr.) and Dick Hickock (Mark Pellegrino).  They are tried and sentenced to hang for the murders.  Capote befriends Perry and gets them a new lawyer to file an appeal in order to keep the two alive long enough for him to get the full story of the murders for his book.

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