Pointless positions in a pointless war make a pointless movie

Rating: 4/10 (6 November 2005)

I walked out on this movie. I've never done that before. Sure I needed to get home, but still a movie is usually it's own excuse. I loved Sam Mendes' other works, Road to Perdition and the modern classic American Beauty, and I went into this movie expecting to be wowed yet again. It was a sheer and utter disappointment. I never did mind a movie without a plot, they always seem to intrigue or make me think, but instead, this movie without a plot just sat. It sat and sat and sat. Nothing happens, ever. I understood that that was the point, that it was supposed to exemplify the harshly useless job of a marine in a war being fought miles away from where they are standing by machines. I got it, but that doesn't mean that there needed to be over 2 hours of footage of scenes so irrelevant from one another it was hard to decipher why exactly things were happening, or why I should care. There needs to be a catharsis, especially in war films, where the viewer connects and feels with the soldier or civilian, but instead, in Jarhead, none of the soldiers is an individual, none are interesting, and none capture any attention. I'd love to blame it only on the script, but Mr. Mendes, I believe that you have fallen. You used good actors but the whole thing fell apart instead of rose to the level your other movies were on.