Jarhead is simply not boring enough.

Rating: 4/10 (6 November 2005)

Just because a film deals with "relevant issues" doesn't mean it is excused from the requirements of innovation. 'Jarhead' is superficially significant due to its wartime content, but the structure and general approach is far from groundbreaking.
To be fair, 'Jarhead' is a hugely physical and often beautiful landscape film gleaming with moments of juicy character interaction. But why make ANOTHER film about wartime? Or why make another FILM ? What is the point of appealing to the movies to tell us something about ourselves? If the point is time-passing entertainment, then yes, 'Jarhead' is entertaining: there is nudity, weaponry, fist-fights, comedy and mental breakdown. But if we expect to be changed, or to know more, or to verify what we expected, or simply to be overwhelmed, then we need a work of art, one which reconciles the subject and the chosen form, because the decision to use film is surely a choice.
Mendes' choice is to focus on the historical dawning of a new type of warfare, one in which Man the Hero-Warrior was rendered unnecessary and boredom elevated critical. In the hands of a more daring director, technique would mirror this story of boredom and alienation and uncertainty and anti-drama. And it could still be funny and beautiful and terrifying. Conversely, 'Jarhead' is an extremely easy watch, set to a pumping soundtrack, flippant rejoinders, familiar stereotypes and a tidy epilogue, even though nothing is supposed to be happening. The "underwritten" characters, a common criticism which I am unsure of, would make much more sense and pack a true bite if their existential world was given a chance to shine in all its dullness. But then, 'Jarhead' would risk being art, and art doesn't fill megaplexes.
Even when a film attempts something maybe semi-exploratory, such as beginning with a black screen and narration as in 'Jarhead', some bully in the front row shouts, "You don't start a film with black!" as with 'Jarhead' on opening night. Ironical or not, such an outburst is nothing more than a disruption. It is a disengagement from the start, which I see reflected in more than just movie-watching. The bully can be a layman or an academic defender, but it's all the same attitude of deferred responsibility that leads to timid art and ridiculous wars.