Bullets, bullets everywhere, but not a shot to shoot

Rating: 7/10 (16 January 2006)

JARHEAD (15) DIR: SAM MENDES
In case anybody was unsure, war is apparently hell. Just ask Captain Benjamin Willard in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979). Or Private Chris Taylor in Oliver Stone's Platoon (1986). Not to mention Private Ryan. Hell even Forrest Gump told us that (But you ain't got no legs... etc etc). So why do we need to learn this again? Going into Jarhead, all that was on my mind was that it was the new film from the director of American Beauty, starring the man from Brokeback Mountain (which I loved). So even if I already knew that war was indeed hell, I might as well hear their side of it, not being familiar with Anthony Swofford's novel.
The film starts out showing the various dehumanising techniques that the grunts go through. Incredibly nasty drill instructors sapping any spirit that these young pretenders may have had, the main character then doubting his decision to join the marines, and of course, lots of boisterous marines behaving impetuously. Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his friend Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) are training to become snipers. To them it's great. A chance to finally see some action. Instead of being behind a desk doing mindless office work. But once the war starts, the action seems to have taken a vacation. And that's what Jarhead is all about. The banality of modern war, and the obsolete soldier who is sent to fight it.
The motif of Jarhead is pretty similar to the war films that we have already been enduring ever since the end of Vietnam. There was nothing in the opening twenty minutes that I hadn't seen in Stanley Kubrick's overlooked Full Metal Jacket (1989). At the beginning of the film the protagonist is somewhat reserved. An apprehensive intellect who reads Camus and is doing his duty in light of his father, who served in Vietnam. As the film goes on, he is eventually one of the boys, and to some degree is in fact a leader to the boys, which made me think of Platoon (1986). Even David O. Russel's superior Three Kings (1999) covers a lot of themes being discussed by Sam Mendes.
The cast are all very good. Jake Gyllenhaal now has the tag of the intellectual leading man. Jamie Foxx is hitting so many high points at this point in his career it's hard to believe he used to do Saturday Night Live. But the film's biggest strengths lie in it's cinematography and it's black humour. There is one scene in which the soldiers sit down and watch Apocalypse Now with sadistic and ironic glee. These are men who want to fight, but don't need to. And as such, end up driving each other mad. The modern soldier is not one who is pelted with bullets and fights his way through the mud. As the protagonist says in his voice-over "There is no solution for mental unbalance". It is not anti-war, nor is it pro-war. It is merely questioning the position of the modern soldier. He is taught the love his rifle, and to be prepared ALWAYS. But for what? Where is the danger? And in the heat of the desert, with his fingers itching over the tempestuous trigger, what is he to do? There is one scene later in the film where a Vietnam war veteran jumps on one of the parading trucks with all the marines. He tearfully embraces the soldiers, and congratulates them on winning. It is perhaps the darkest, and yet funniest moment in the film. Vietnam was a both a mental and physical hell. Kuwait was a mental and physical bore fest. And whilst a film about boredom never looks good on paper, Sam Mendes has done enough to make it both engaging and insightful, even it is reminiscent of superior work gone by.