Not too much action, not a problem

Rating: 9/10 (6 November 2005)

If you're looking for two hours of explosions, detached limbs flying through the air, and blood and guts, then don't see this movie. You will be disappointed. "Jarhead" is not your typical war movie. Many great war movies of the past tell stories of soldiers almost going insane because of the violence and death they have been cast into. This film shows how being in war with the lack of any action at all can have the same effect.
"Jarhead" digs deep into its characters as it follows their quest for glory and war through Desert Storm. This quest begins to become an obsession as the soldiers are driven to their limits by boredom of waiting for their time to fight and the paranoia that their wives and girl friends at home are being unfaithful. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Tony Swofford, a marine sniper who, like his fellow soldiers, only wants a little taste of war to make up for all the miserable training he has gone through. "Jarhead" follows his psychological struggle through this hell on Earth. As he and his platoon camp in the deserts of Saudi Arabia, they find themselves engulfed in pointless repetition. They patrol the open desert looking for nothing, they practice shooting at nothing and their only sources of entertainment include a wall hanging with pictures of soldiers' wives and girlfriends who have cheated on them, perfecting the art of taking their rifle apart and putting it back together, and above all, a lot of masturbation. One of my favorite scenes is when a big group of soldiers are in a screening room watching the scene from "Apocalypse Now" where the Huey's bomb the life out of a Viet Cong camp. The look on the characters' faces resemble a child who has just seen Santa Claus flying across the sky in his sleigh.
When the war finally starts, the only action that comes for them is bombs dropping from so far away that the enemy cannot be seen and all the soldiers can do is hunker down in their holes. Finally Swofford's chance comes when he and his spotter are sent on a mission to find and kill two Iraqi officers. Just as he has one officer in his sights he is told that he cannot shoot because an air strike is coming instead. His spotter, played by Peter Sarsgaard, begs for Swofford to be given the shot. When they are denied he finally breaks down in tears. I have to say, before "Jarhead" Jake Gyllenhaal had never impressed me in any role he had played. He turns it all around this time with an amazing performance, as does the supporting cast including Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx as Sgt. Sykes.
This film shows an ironic side to war. Being forced to fight can kill a man, but not being able to fight has its effects also. "Jarhead" shows that every war is different but even if you don't fire one bullet, war is war and it sticks with you forever. As Swofford says "Every war is different, every war is the same."