Breaking the modern war movie mold

Rating: 9/10 (30 December 2005)

When it was released in 1998, Saving Private Ryan immediately established a new trend for future war movies. The quick, relatively painless deaths portrayed in older, more conventional war movies were replaced by brutal, incredibly graphic ones and battle scenes were more realistically laid out on screen. Then again, most of these movies centered around the casualty-ridden battles of older wars like WWII and Vietnam. In Jarhead, we get to see another side of human conflict; the minimal combat modern-day political war. The first Persian Gulf War, the focus of Jarhead, lasted less than 100 days and produced less than 200 American casualties, many of which were caused by friendly fire. For many troops who were deployed to the sands of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, there was no war. What do you do when you're sent to war and there's no war to fight? When you're trained to be a killer, what do you do when there's no enemy to kill? Jarhead examines these questions frankly, engrossingly, and memorably. The plight of Marines struggling to contain their boredom and insanity while an international conflict is raging on their doorstep is all too evident and real. It's a startling contrast to the loud, frantic ambushes of violence of other "modern" war movies in the mold of Saving Private Ryan. While Jarhead doesn't completely rationalize the questions posed, it's impossible to rationalize something as devastating as war. When all is said and done, it's a riveting look at another side of war that for the most part had been left unobserved. The images and words spoken by the movie's servicemen convey that sense of the unknown that only the field of battle can produce. In a small way, the audience will leave Jarhead feeling like they themselves have been to war.