A hard job done well

Rating: 7/10 (11 January 2006)

Firstly, I must note, it is hard to make a good war movie. It may easily turn into some shiny, propagandistic piece (like Pearl Harbor or We Were Soldiers) or it might end up being too stereotype-filled with the hall of war. Or possibly a combination of both... I think, the creators of the film did their best to make Jarhead an exception. They do not show us bullet-torn human bodies to achieve a cathartic effect and do not create heroic characters who act in name of such trite values as honor or courage (after all, nobody believes that such figures did exist in wars). Instead, they try to be as realistic as possible, but still entertaining. In addition they deliberately distance themselves from politics. They are not interested in the reasons, the causes or the outcomes of war, just in the plain, first-hand effect of it on the soldier.
I think, this goal was achieved rather successfully, although at some points I found the film a bit opposed to the current war in Iraq, and at other points (culminating in the scene with the horse and the scene with the burned corpses in the destroyed vehicle column) a bit of that "oh, how cruel war is, and how much pain it causes for the innocent" message.