"This is Vietnam music. Can't we even get our own f***ing music?"

Rating: 9/10 (25 January 2006)

Jarhead isn't your typical combat action-war film. In fact it's probably the most unconventional war drama out there. There are no scenes of action, combat, or firefights, and you'd think that that would make Jarhead a boring and uninteresting war film. Well the answer is strangely No. Jarhead does have a moment or two where boredom settles in briefly, but the film is never really uninteresting. The film is based on the book, of the same title, written by former Marine Anthony Swofford (played here by Jake Gyllenhaal). Anthony enlists in the Marines hoping to make something out of himself. He goes through basic training; where he practices and becomes a top ranking sniper. He develops a "taste" for what they call the "pink mist", that's a head shot, or kill shot for those of you who were wondering.
Once he and his platoon are finished with Basic they're shipped off to Saudi Arabia where they wait for action and then they wait some more, and then some more. The lack of action and the soldier's lust to "get some" is eating them up inside. They're bored, and they've been highly and thoroughly trained for combat, but the waiting game is killing them. The war is being mostly fought and won by the "zoomies" (that's what the Marines call fighter jets). The soldier's are not only suffering from boredom, but also from sexual frustration. They all wonder if their girlfriends are cheating on them, or will dump them. They seem to have very little belief that they'll remain faithful to them while they're away at war, and a couple of them aren't, as can clearly be seen in one particularly shocking scene. There's also another pretty shocking nightmare scene that puts the Nirvana song Something in the Way to great use.
Jarhead is less about fighting a war, and more about a soldier's mental state while at war, especially when dealing with the itching nerve to want to be in the middle of combat putting your skills to the test. It can drive some men mad. Jarhead isn't about politics, it's about men, not exactly soldiers (they're men first, soldiers second). The first half of Jarhead is almost a comedy, with a number of goofy moments and dark humor. Then the film slides into the surreal as men are riding on the edge of battle. The scenes with the burning oil fields is darkly haunting and at the same time beautiful. Jarhead isn't Black Hawk Down, it isn't a film about diving into chaos and rescuing your buddy, it's about the way men are in the places and situations of war. The film delivers a number of strong performances from good actors surrounding Gyllenhaal, like Jamie Foxx as Staff Sgt. Sykes (he plays his role very realistically and funny) and Peter Sarsgaard as Troy, Swofford's closest friend.
Director Sam Mendes (American Beauty and Road to Perdition) has created the first real war film that fully immerses the viewer in what it's really like to be a soldier, but surprisingly without any combat, and somehow it still succeeds. I should also mention the film's score by Thomas Newman, like all of his scores, is absolutely sensational, and really helps set the tone and rhythm. The film's unrestrained, unflinching look at male soldiers is strangely unique and fascinating. Most war films have a particular message to tell you, in Saving Private Ryan it was the shocking brutality of war, and in Black Hawk Down it was what drives men to go into dangerous, chaotic situations, but in Jarhead I'm not so sure there's a message to learn. Jarhead is more like real life, it's pointless, and it's more of an experience and a state of mind than a lesson. It's a story about men in uniform, and the uniform doesn't change anything, they're still a man underneath. If Mendes has said anything in Jarhead it's "once a solider, always a solider". You take those experiences with you, and no matter what you do with the rest of your life you'll always be a soldier. The main thing I said to myself after watching Jarhead was, "Well, that was surprisingly different... and good." And sometimes different is all a film really needs to be in order to work, and Jarhead works. This is one of my favorite films of the year, and one of my favorite war films, right along side Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down.