A surprisingly well-done film

Rating: 8/10 (4 November 2005)

Jarhead will disappoint the majority of people who go to see it. That is not to say it is a bad movie. It's just not what the average member of its target audience will want to see. The average twenty-something male who goes to see Jarhead is looking for a war movie. Jarhead is many things, but I would not say it's a war movie. It is a raw, unsanitized account of life in the Marine Corps and life in a war zone. The hazing, the boredom, the frustration that the bureaucrats won't get it together, the fear, the uncertainty, the wondering whether one's significant other is being faithful while her man is deployed in a country he doesn't feel like defending anyway, the charred corpses of civilians, the fratricide, the tent parties held with contraband alcohol, the descent toward insanity.
Jarhead was a prime opportunity to get up on a soapbox and preach the evils of war and film a treatise on the politics of Desert Storm. Thankfully, you don't see much of it in this film. Apart from the civilian casualties, lamenting that the soldiers were spending weeks protecting a rich ally's oil wells while the government decided whether or not they would bother to go to Kuwait where the real crisis was, and the scripted interviews with journalists (which the soldiers interrupt creatively), the political realities of the Gulf War are mostly absent from the movie.
Many people are going to Jarhead to see action. There isn't much to be seen. There's plenty of humor and excellent acting (particularly from Jake Gyllenhaal, who plays the lead role of "Swoff"), but these are not likely to impress the target audience. Couple that with a strange ending, and you're likely to hear a few grumbles from people who are judging it as an action flick rather than just a flick. Let them gripe. I thought Jarhead was an excellent movie, one I will go back to see multiple times. I'll also be buying the memoir upon which this true story is based.