Silent but Deadly

Rating: 7/10 (24 November 2005)

"Jarhead" is an autobiographical account of a Marine sniper named Anthony Swofford, based on his 2003 book of the same name, about his service in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during Desert Storm in the early 1990's. It is obviously a war movie, but not in the sense that it is filled with combat and carnage - indeed, the 2 1/2 hours of the film are almost totally void of any combat whatsoever. It is a firsthand account of a group of men that were vigorously and relentlessly trained and prepared - all so they could sit and wait for months. How do you keep your mind and body on edge and, as their sergeant says, "suspiciously alert" when nothing ever happens? And if your mind and body are always thinking of battle, ready for combat, how do you handle months of stillness? The film answers these questions in an honest and unsettling way. For 2 1/2 hours, we get a small taste of the seemingly endless days of nothing that these highly trained Marines experienced. Sound like the war movies you're used to?
It was directed by Sam Mendes, whose 1999 film "American Beauty" won several Academy Awards,including Best Picture and Best Director for Mendes; Beauty is a gorgeous, darkly funny film about a 40-something nobody (played by Kevin Spacey) who experiences something of a personal renewal, which leads to a joyous, reckless lifestyle for the last year of his life, until he is murdered at the end of the film (If you think I have given something away, note the movie's opening line: "I'm Lester Burnham. In less than a year, I'll be dead."). He was also at the helm of 2002's "Road to Perdition," the harrowing tale of a family man and his lingering mob connections, and their catastrophic results. I mention these previous works for two purposes: 1) to show that Mendes is a talented and capable filmmaker with a poignant visual style, and 2) to demonstrate that he is fit for tragedy, and apt to make films with dark reality as their center. "Jarhead" is nervously funny, and deals in a very subtle and poignant way with two dark and disturbing realities: the horror of war (a well-known, almost expected, theme for war movies) and the perhaps deeper horror of a wicked and mysterious tendency that lies in its participants.
Am I being elusive here? Perhaps there's no good way to put into words the emotions the movie provokes. It is given validity not only by the fact that it is based on a firsthand account of the war, but by its strong performances. Jake Gyllenhaal plays the narrator character, Anthony Swofford, and it is easily his best work, and shows us that we may see many more great achievements from this young actor. Excellent supporting performances also come from Jamie Foxx and Peter Sarsgaard.