A rifle can be a possessive lover . . .

Rating: 8/10 (16 January 2006)

Jarhead War movies and anti-war movies cover such a wide range that one can be forgiven for wondering what the latest offering will be. Left wing protest? All-American hero? Action-thriller? Historical? Often spanning several genres, our cinematic take on humanity's bloodiest of pastimes even throws up comedies and romances. Although the Gulf War film Jarhead can be taken as a critical comment on U.S. Marine core training (shades of Full Metal Jacket), a meditation on the pointlessness of war (humour akin to Catch 22), or one man's bird's-eye unexpurgated view (it's based on a real-life chronicle), its real focus (echoed at the beginning and the end of the film) is the psychological trauma of being a soldier, holding a rifle, living through a warzone and becoming, ultimately, so obsessed with that function that it never leaves you, even afterwards. "Whatever else he may do with his life . . . he will always be a jarhead."
We've long known the terrible mental effects war can have  from the 'shell-shock' of World War One to the lingering horrors of Vietnam, but it was perhaps with the Gulf War that such concerns came so much to the fore and so openly - with the discussion of 'Gulf War Syndrome' and other effects. A 1996 Veterans Association study, for instance, reported that Gulf War vets were 50% more likely to die in a motor vehicle accident than military personnel not sent to the Gulf War. What Jarhead does, far more explicitly than, say, Full Metal Jacket or The Deerhunter, is make the link between training that might be likened to brainwashing, and the end result of a personality that is devoid of anything that can take back ownership after military duties end. 'Jarhead' refers to the marines having heads like empty jars that are filled with what they are told to be filled with. In psychological terms, the military gives a person a lot of skills that can be used outside, and a person signs up for it knowingly  these and many other features distinguish it from more 'evil' forms of 'brainwashing' - but the intentional breaking of the ego and re-building it in a manner to suit the military objective, whatever name we call the process, is a powerful and often permanent catharsis.
Jake Gyllenhaal shines as the intelligent young recruit playing 'Swoff' (Anthony Swofford). He realises after a certain amount of mind-numbing humiliation that maybe he doesn't want to be a marine after all. His buddy (with a criminal record) is the opposite  and can't wait to 'kill something'. Many of the men are a rational 'in-between' and intellectually justify or genuinely love their job (although we wonder in the case of the staff sergeant, ably played by Jamie Foxx, if his glorying in the wonderful career and the unique opportunity of sights such as the oil fields on fire isn't reflected in the fact that he might not be fit to do very much else).
The storyline is jumpy in parts, enlivened by escapades as the marines wait endlessly for action, but it is more than compensated by a brilliantly witty script and adaptation. The humour outshines the screen version of Catch 22 and captures some of the irony of Three Kings (scenes of burnt-out, fleeing Iraqi family cars) as well as the fact that the soldiers have little knowledge or interest in why they are fighting a war other than to "kick some Iraqi ass." Director Sam Mendes has scored another success that comments on dysfunctional almost as poignantly as his earlier American Beauty. As the returning troops ride a bus back home as part of a welcome brigade, a down-and-out Vietnam vet jumps onboard to congratulate them, peeling the veneer of success from scenes of banner-waving smiling girls. As the final credits fade, we hear the chant, "All my life I've had this dream: to be a bad motherf*cker US Marine." The film seems to say to us: "Be careful what you wish for."