Jarhead

Visually, it was an extremely beautiful film, plot-wise it wasn't that great. While watching Jarhead, I was reminded of many other (and better) films, from Full Metal Jacket and How I Won the War to The Thin Red Line, The Hill and Black Hawk Down, and the story was again the classic confession of one green brain looking for battle. But fortunately it was also peppered with enough humor (which reminds me of the lack of "comedy" in these genres). However, the film is easily pushed above average by the technical processing. Director Mendes and cinematographer Deakins have a blast in the desert, you can almost feel the heat in the film, and from the oil wells being lit to the end, Jarhead is a feast for the eyes. One shot more breathtaking than the next. (12/16/2012)

Serious perspectives of war as hell on earth abound throughout cinema. It's a bit harder to find lighter funny satires. Yet is it worthwhile to look at war without a drop of sentimentality and still maintain a sarcastic tone about how "war is an asshole" even when it's boring? Sam Mendes has undergone a genre metamorphosis and instead of family crises, he observes the negative effects of combat conflict on individuals without firing a single shot. Right from the introduction to when they are at the military staging area, which in a way paraphrases Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, through the uncompromising pouring of ideology into the brains of the soldiers, when it is necessary to declare to the public forever how important it is to fight for one's country, to the (non)encounter with the enemy itself. In this case they are not the Iraqi troops, but rather one's own frustration from unreasonable boredom and endless waiting. When Swofford thinks of his girlfriend, the viewer is tempted to go and pat him sympathetically on the back; when he cleans latrines as punishment, we prefer to turn away. And when the sky turns black and oil rain starts falling from the sky, everyone has to realize that things can't get any worse. Then memories of encounters with a lone horse or a column of Humvees wandering through the desert come to mind and we want to praise cameraman Roger Deakins. Finally, any Foxx - Gyllenhaal debate tells us that the current generation of actors has its aces. And I'm beginning to think that going to war wasn't the happiest decision I’ve ever made. (04/15/2006)

At the beginning heavy-duty boredom that you’ve seen a hundred times in a hundred movies. But later Mendes starts to show us different, more interesting things. Gyllenhaal’s dream-like visions when he pukes up sand, burning oil wells (definite climax of the movie) and soldiers who would do anything to be able to shoot at a live target. Jarhead really is an extraordinary film. It shows the US Army in a different, and maybe finally perhaps a true light. By the way Newman’s soundtrack is just outstanding. (04/26/2007)

Join up! Uncle Sam wants you! You’ll have a great time with us, get to do some shooting, kill some non-American bastards, protect your country and three meals a day... Or not? Boredom in the desert or Sam Mendes’ third attempt. And again it’s something completely different from his previous movies. This time he brings us a provocative and raw insight into the life of a young marine during the Gulf War. First he undergoes training and then, keen to fight, he is posted to a war where nothing happens and the action he was dreaming about never comes, and all he does is stand on watch amongst sand dunes, waiting and waiting... And waiting. The movie is more a patchwork of individual scenes (especially the one when the soldiers are watching Apocalypse Now I can’t shake out of my head, like many other scenes too), but despite that, or maybe because of that, the movie is really powerful. And we get good elephant doses of sarcasm and satire. In technical terms it is precise (that’s right, the camerawork is almost unreal; the scene with the horse in the middle of the burning oil fields is the peak of perfection), as is the soundtrack. Every one of the actors is great, as they tend to be in Mendes’ movies. Mendes’ directing is again flawless, inventive and seething with ideas. And Jake “Donnie Darko" Gyllenhaal is a chapter in himself, proving again that he is one of the biggest talents of contemporary transatlantic cinema. This picture of boredom in the middle of a modern military conflict and the impact it leaves on its protagonists is even more interesting and chilling because the movie manages to impart this feeling to the viewer too. (02/21/2006)

An entertaining and, in its own way, very cool account of war without chilling battle scenes? Yes! Sam Mendes is at the top of his game, creating the dense atmosphere of the desert in an original way and, without sentimentality or emotional swings, documenting the depression of the Marines who experience life’s losses instead of fulfilling their American boyish dreams. Jarhead is a remarkably laid-back film about uncomfortable issues. (01/14/2006)