Jarhead (Film Review)

“EVERY WAR IS DIFFERENT, EVERY WAR IS THE SAME”. This is the penultimate quote from the film Jarhead, directed by Sam Mendes and starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx, and as quotes go I couldn’t think of a better one to sum up this film. It’s a theme which runs through the movie and underpins it’s central message.

Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows “Swoff” (Gyllenhaal), a third-generation enlistee, from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty in the Middle East desert as part of the first Gulf War. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don’t understand against an enemy they can’t see for a cause they don’t fully fathom.

I liked this film, but it has it’s issues. Most people won’t get it, most will not understand the attraction of watching a bunch of marines go slowly insane from boredom, frustration and paranoia. This is not a war movie - it’s more of an anti-war movie, but it worked for me, and let me tell you why…

“Welcome to the suck!”

Right from the start of the movie, when we are introduced to the character of Anthony “Swoff” Swofford in boot camp it becomes obvious that things will not go as expected. The sharp but sadronic situational humour we see at boot is carried on throughout the entire movie and serves as some relief for the more harrowing scenes. When the shit happens, when things get ‘fucked’ and nothing goes to plan, the only recourse of the marine is to remind themseleves of what they are told from the start… “Welcome to the suck!”. In other words - shit happens, get used to it.

“The Earth is bleeding”

The cinematography in the desert scenes is very competent. There was a lot of effort put in to reproduce authenticity and the details really showed. Things like the marines walking through a desert which had been bombed back to the stoneage by fly-boys, and as they proceed through the black and burned sand, they leave pristine white trails behind them. The scenes around burning oilfields were particularly well done, with great attention to lighting and setting. Many of the scenes were wide angle, large vista style approaches which meant the sets had to be pretty good to stand up to scrutiny, and for the most part this was achieved.

The music in this film is excellent, containing a wonderful selection of relevant and poignant music (including throwbacks to the Vietnam war). There where times when I was laughing out loud at this movie, not so much at the action or the joke on the screen, but more at the “point” of the music for the scenes in question. It just worked for me.

The camera work at times has a documentary feel to it, very up close and personal with a touch of Saving Private Ryan about it. The style varies however from scene to scene which can be a bit annoying to the viewer.

Every problem has a solution

The key issue all these marines face in the desert is boredom. They train, they practice and then they wait… and during this period of waiting the frustration kicks in, the paranoia begins and the real interaction between jarheads on the ground is portrayed. It’s a case of ‘hurry up and wait’ for these marines, who have been trained to fight, to kill, but only end up waiting in the desert for something to happen.

There is a wonderful monologue in the film which is worth repeating here… “For most problems the Marine is issued a solution. If ill, go to sickbay. If wounded, call a Corpsman. If dead, report to graves registration. If losing his mind, however, no standard solution exists. This is central to the point of this film, it’s not about the war, but about waiting for the war, about going slowly insane and not knowing what to do about it.

“Hey, look! It’s a cock, but smaller!”

The acting is competent but not incredible. Gyllenhaal delivers his role with ease, rarely being called upon to dig deep emotionally with the exception of perhaps two or three scenes. Sarsgaard delivers the sensitive companion to offer counterpoint to the insanity, and Foxx delivers a rock solid, bible bashing, “Sarge” character that doesn’t really get to show anything beyond the inevitable ball-buster these types seem to be. The squad of marines contains the usual mix of ethnics, geeks, hard-ons and whackjobs… all present and accounted for and all delivering what is expected for this kind of movie. Problem is - it’s just not ‘big’ enough. The performances are competent, but forgetable. Nothing to write home about. I guess “smaller” than expected would be the way of putting it

“I got lost on the way to college sir”

The irony of the above quote is that the film does seem to get lost somewhere in the third act. Having established the plot and theme, and introduced all the characters and their roles, by the time we get to the actual action it’s over too fast (like the war for some) and the resolution seems a bit rushed somehow. I know this forms part of the point of it all, but still - a few more minutes exploring what happened afterwards, I mean directly afterwards before the marines returned to the ‘real’ (that’s real life to you and me) would have been welcome.

Some viewers will have a problem with this approach, I suspect they will come looking for an action packed war movie and will leave the cinema wondering what the hell it was all about. I knew what I was in for so it didn’t bother me, but still the resolution just didn’t work for me because of it’s speed. We spend the majority of this movie waiting and watching and preparing, then get to see a few minutes of actual war (which is fine) but then even less time afterwards is spent dishing out the aftermath, the effect if you will. The whole point of getting to know these characters (for me) was to understand what they were going through, to gain an appreciation of what the marine has to face in that situation, and the problem is I also wanted to know what happened afterwards.

“We are still in the desert.”

The conclusion of the film is (as mentioned above) a bit rushed in my opinion, however it does tie up some loose ends. There is a quote used at the start, which is also used in closing to sum up what it’s all been about… “Whatever else he may do with his life - build a house, love a woman, change his son’s diaper - he will always be a jarhead. And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me. We are still in the desert.” And that’s what ultimately came across from the film. The experience of these marines, in that place at that time, was the same (more or less) as any other soldier, on any other battlefield at any other time. All the futility, all the anger and all the personal changes brought on by both are the same for everyone who goes through it, and in the end they are still there, because it never leaves them.

In Conclusion

I liked the film. I respect Sam Mendes as a director and I’ve been following Jake Gyllenhaal with interest ever since his appearance in Donnie Darko back in 2001, but I still think they could have done more with this film. It was a competent turnout both technically and atristically, but nothing special. I don’t think I’ll be collecting this one or recommending it for the DVD shelf, however if you have a spare rainy day coming up soon and you have nothing else better to do - give it a whirl and make your own mind up.