Jack of All Trade, but Master of None

Rating: 3/10 (16 January 2006)

Apparently, Jake Gyllenhaal was SO desperate to be in this movie that he told Sam Mendes (the director) that he'd do ANYTHING! I wonder if he now regrets his keenness, for having appeared in such brilliance as "Donnie Darko" and "Brokeback Mountain" it's a pity to see such a promising young talent in generic ho-hum films like "The Day After Tomorrow" and this one. The main failing with "Jarhead" is that it's a Jack of All Trades, but a Master of None. It knowingly apes so many other films (like "Apocalypse Now", "Catch 22", "MASH", "Full Metal Jacket" and even "The Odd Angry Shot") that by doing so, it holds itself out for comparison and fails, miserably, against every one. Okay, so it's covering fresh ground (the Gulf War), but, to be honest, the brutal training and the 'filling in the boring bits between the fighting' are still the same. It's unfortunate that the tag-line for the film is "Welcome To The Suck" because the film does.