Waiting is hell

Rating: 8/10 (14 December 2005)

Everybody knows that war is hell. "Jarhead" wants us to know that waiting around for war isn't so great, either, especially when one is forced to do it from within a testosterone factory, full of young men who have been led to believe that they'll be shooting some dark-skinned, moustachioed types any minute. It's enough to make you crazy.
Enough to make Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenahll) crazy, at least. It doesn't take long for Swofford to second-guess his decision to enlist in the Marines. "Jarhead" opens with a sort of homage to the famous Paris Island portion of Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket." No tragic murder-suicide in this case, but around when his drill sergeant starts slamming heads into walls and shouting about his sexuality, Swofford begins to assume a glazed, jaded look. He's as excited as anyone else when his unit is ordered to Kuwait as part of Operation Desert Shield, though predicts on the plane that they'll be back before they've digested their complimentary peanuts. He whoops and hollers with everyone else at a rousing speech by the commanding officer full of references to "the bureaucrats in Washington," kicking Iraqi ass, and other soldierly musings.
But the ass-kicking doesn't seem to materialize. There's plenty of running around in the desert, target practice, and football games. Swofford's Staff Seargeant (Jaime Foxx) loves to pull surprise gas raid drills. A few of these "jarheads," though, are sharp enough to notice that reality on the ground is quite a bit different than the official line, parroted gleefully by a lot of their comrades who can't wait to start killing Arabs. It's this cognitive dissonance that's at the heart of director Sam Mendes' movie. These guys have been pumped full of military hokum about the mysticism of their rifles, being killing machines, and the importance of the Corps, but life in the desert is largely consumed by domestic issues back home, and the killing of nothing more than time. There's a pressure-cooker of aggression here that's got no release valve. Swofford, at least, begins to lose his bearings. He shoves his gun in a comrade's face, and when the bombs do start falling, he can only stand there in a daze. As one marine points out, though, the war moves way too fast for troops on the ground. By the time they get mobilized, air strikes have pushed the front miles further back. Even the sight of a charred Iraqi convoy, strafed while trying to flee, arouses little emotion. The pilots are actually fighting the war; the grunts on the ground just sort of hang around it.
"Jarhead" at times feels unfocused, but I think that's the point. Combat and killing are psychologically scarring, but so is preparing people for such, then leaving them to wait in uncertainty. Back home in a victory parade, a Vietnam vet hops on the unit's bus to offer congratulations personally. He sits down, clearly having a moment of profound emotional connection with these new returnees. Swofford seems both to understand completely and feel miles apart. Combat isn't the only terrible thing war has to offer. While perhaps less intense in the moment, the buildup, aftermath, and peripherals exact a psychological toll as well, and create their own demons.