'Welcome to The Suck'...yeah, no kidding.

Rating: 2/10 (10 March 2006)

I have to admit I was really pumped to see this film: the trailer was strong, the score was powerful and inspiring, the cinematography was gorgeous; it was a perfect set up for a satisfying kind of war film experience.
So...what the hell? Being the wife of a Desert Storm vet (Navy-- go Bunker Hill), I was interested in getting someone else's perspective of the war, and I'd have to say that if my husband told me a story as boring and as impossibly inaccurate as this one, I would have thought that he went AWOL before he was shipped off and just made it up from there.
And even THAT would have been a better story than this.
So we have a very clever point of view meet-and-greet with Anthony Swofford and get an appropriately small idea of why he joined the Marines (and due to what he's come from I don't blame him).
We follow him through boot-camp (in which the style and build up screams Full Metal Jacket, but unfortunately without the stylistic intensity and wit of R. Lee Ermey), and hop into the war, and that, my friends, is where you are truly experiencing The Suck.
***SPOILER ALERT*** These guys spend 98% of their time babysitting sand, the other 2% shaking their asses at each other or faking orgies to embarrass their Staff Sgt. And while I have NO problem appreciating exactly how effective boot camp exercise is on the male body, I have a hard time believing that they wouldn't get shot for frat-boy behavior in a wartime situation.
Oh and Marine officers don't preform 'blue' stand-up: like a roomful of shouting Marines "makes his d*** wiggle". That kind of comedy you get from the drill instructors NOT high ranking officers.
Anyway, in the war film tradition you have: conflict with those in charge, one or two comrades around you, as well as conflicts in adapting to the foreign environment and...well...a bit of shooting of the bad guys here and there, topped off with a coming-of-age perspective. Now I understand that it was a new idea to have a war film where they are nowhere near shooting range of the enemy, and to highlight Swofford's frustration considering they've all been wound up to kill something since they entered boot camp, but does the audience REALLY need to be dragged through it too? And even that might have been bearable if I felt that Swofford had come out of it a changed man--he seems as emotionally dead and lost at the end as he was in the beginning.
What, the whole message of the film was 'Never get your hopes up?' or 'You can't always get what you want?' People can get that message loud and clear everyday at any drive thru, so when you're talking about war something way more profound than that needs to come across before the final credits roll.
***END Of SPOILER*** But I will say that the 'video from home' scene was a brilliant surprise.
Personally I find the whole thing offensive to the honor of The Corps. Marines always, always, always embody the strength, sacrifice and Don't Tread On Me pride of the US in reality as well as in film. They are in there to make the enemy "come correct". That's why they're first in and last out in the real world. When you want areas guarded you call the Army, when you want s*** handled you call the Marines. That's what they love, that's why they're there and that's why they're the basis of war films. To show them without this kind of power or at least an attempt to grab it kills their entire legendary essence in that moment. And while I'll never lose respect for them as a force, I hate the idea of a film presenting them as though they didn't deserve to be called heroes or that they're egomanical frauds.
I will give credit to Sam Mendes for his fabulous eye--the scope of the desert was phenomenal; the main actors were perfect choices: Jake Gyllenhaal gives us some very realistic moments of rage; I thought Jamie Foxx was under-used as a our Marine Lifer but had right attitude for it.
Basically, if you want to develop the 1000-yard stare this is a great starting point.