Jarhead, even though captivating and beautifully shot, ultimately does not deliver. The talent in this film is beyond belief with Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard playing off of each other and forming an odd bond in the mist of a political war for oil and adding small parts from smooth talking Jamie Foxx and Chris Cooper, talent alone can’t carry a film at this magnitude. Director Sam Mendes missed so many great opportunities to pull the audience in and give us a reason to love it. A great deal went unexplained, so much just happened for no apparent reason and many of the political aspects are never confronted. Unfortunately I found myself wondering how much longer this film could possibly go on, I felt the boredom and anxiety the Marines felt as they sat in the desert waiting for combat to happen.
Jarhead
2 & 1/2 Stars
Based on the book by Anthony Swofford, Jarhead makes a vague attempt at following suite to characters and style, but never gets there. So many moments in Swofford’s memories and story were short lived on the screen and left to our own imaginations. Following Swofford (Gyllenhaal) from a quick and rough boot camp onto his battalion assignment goes by in a flash accompanied with short moments that attempt an explanation of why he joined up and a small closed door glimpse into his life. But no hard core facts or reasoning to why Swofford joined the Marines or his hook-up on being such a smart mouthed mess up.
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Instantly assigned to a special sniper unit by Staff Sgt. Sykes (Foxx), Swofford is thrown directly into the “suc” and off to war where the troops wait around for something, anything, to happen. Sykes getting listless himself, constantly torturing his troop with playing football in 112 degree weather while wearing their protective gear or building pyramids in the middle of the night in a down poor, gets boring and tedious, but not any more of a problem then watching the interaction between the soldiers. A continuous dialogue of “what to do in the desert while waiting for a war” is monotonous and never mixes up, Swofford goes on and on about masturbation, digging holes, shooting practice, and such, this is as dry as the rest of the story.
There are a few disturbing, funny and open mouth moments for the audience to take in, but not many. Watching the soldiers get hyped up on war films is quite disturbing, seeing how they react to people getting blown up and total destruction of human life as if they are getting psyched for the game maybe factual, but not something the public would be very comfortable with. The scenes in the desert with raining oil and fires blazing from the tanks dropped a few jaws, but pretty does not an Oscar make. Poignant moments in the film would be when the troop stumbles across a charred traffic jam with all the pedestrians fried to a crisp and Swofford wonders off to get sick, he sits down with a group of blackened soldiers who looked to be eating or playing a card game and states that it has been a pretty messed up day to them. Something about that scene really stands out in my mind as such a surreal moment. Another moment is when Swofford and Troy (Sarsgaard) finally get the opportunity to get their first kill. All set up for the shot with approval from the commander (Chris Cooper), the moment goes still, hearts start racing and in an instant the moment was stolen. Troy breaks down, he throws a huge fit and gets out of control, he wanted that kill, he wanted the reason for him being in this war to be validated and it was taken away from him.
An ending that is as depressing as the rest of the film following what is left of a Marine after the fight is over. Mendes gives us a view to what happens to each soldier when they return home, jobs, babies, marriage, break-ups and suicide, there is no happy ending here, just life.
Overall people are getting their fill of wars in the desert every night on TV and honestly some of the scenes we get to see on TV are a great deal more personable and interesting than what Jarhead delivers. We know Desert Storm happened and we have seen one war film after another that has accomplished a great deal more in style, content and character investment, Jarhead will not be listed amongst it’s better predecessors. Jarhead has the talent, the cinematography, and the opportunity at a story that could have been a contender, but fell short in pulling in the audience and left much of the story empty and dull.