Jarhead - More than a little biased, but still an excellent movie.

Rating: 7/10 (1 November 2005)

I just got back from an FSU advance screening that was packed, and was met with a lot of anticipation.
I'll start with what Jarhead is. Jarhead is an excellent movie. It is an excellent movie with poignant acting (especially by Gyllenhaal, but the ensemble is truly great overall). It is a visual extravaganza - some beautiful photos. The burning oil fields of Iraq is quite a memorable scene. It is well-written and profound. It is directed gorgeously by Mendes, but with a bit less finesse than American Beauty. It is an important movie, examining the psychological aspects of modern warfare.
Now, what Jarhead isn't.
Jarhead is not a nonpartisan film. Its pretense at being "purely" from a soldier's perspective is not as viscous as it thinks; it's very see-through. I'm not completely sure if the movie even ONCE touched on the positive aspects of the Gulf War without mocking it with a large amount of bravado and testosterone. The brave soldiers fighting the Gulf War were mocked as animals, as bloodthirsty, sex-starved idiots who joined the army by default rather than by choice. This is not the truth of the matter. Now, I don't believe it was the "duty" of the movie to depict the entire scope of the Gulf War. However, I think it was incredibly irresponsible to give a 100% negative viewpoint on the conflict, all the while feigning ignorance of the current political context (yet, of course, still using certain disgruntled soldiers as ridiculously transparent soapboxes for current affairs).
Broyles may have wanted to pay a bit more attention to eliminating political bias in his script. If he truly wanted to tell it purely from a soldier's perspective, he would have used his editorial license on Swofford's book to touch on the positive aspects of the war (or, at LEAST war in general), he would have shown a little more respect for those that were involved in the conflict rather than allowing them to be depicted as robots that either humped or shot anything that moved.
Still, I want to give a big bravo to Mendes for a beautiful film. It really was a powerful work as a case study, although it was just so unfairly portrayed that I have trouble accepting it as being legitimately dealt with.