If Forrest Gump Had Gone to Iraq

Rating: 7/10 (16 June 2007)

Oscar-winning "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes's new movie "Jarhead" qualifies more as a rowdy, sometimes unsavory Marine Corps service comedy than either an anti-war epic or a mission-oriented adventure opus. The First Gulf War memoirs of a Marine in a scout/sniper outfit served as the basis for "Apollo 13" scenarist William Broyles, Jr.'s faithful but politically muted screenplay. Real-life Lance Corporal Anthony Swofford had few kind words for the presidency of George Bush the elder or the contrived reasons that America sought to protect the Saudi Arabian oil fields from Saddam Hussein's marauding Iraqi Army. As graphically profane as the R-rated "Jarhead" may strike those innocents that never saw Stanley Kubrick's incendiary 1987 Vietnam classic "Full Metal Jacket," this military movie emerges as relatively clean-scrubbed compared with the eloquent but earthy sentiments that Swofford describes in his page-turning book. Although they don't recreate Swofford's insightful saga detail for detail, Mendes and Broyles manage to capture the sense of futility that the Marines felt in a war where the Pentagon kept them hobbled in a mind-numbing state of readiness with no pay-off in terms of combat. Indeed, "Jarhead" combines the raunchy juvenile pranks of those salacious 1980's teenager sex comedies like "Porky's," minus the naked women, with the traditional military hijinks of Marion Hargrove's comic experiences in his 1944 novel "See Here, Private Hargrove" about life in a U.S. Army boot camp. Unlike violent combat shoot'em ups such as Ridley Scott's "Black Hawk Down" (2001), "Jarhead" emerges as anti-climactic, because the sudden surrender of Saddam's army in First Gulf War wound up being ostensibly anti-climactic itself. Ultimately, this Desert Shield/Desert Storm movie laments the boredom and loneliness that afflicted modern warriors honed to edge of perfection and dispatched half-way around the world in a giant sandbox with little chance of showing off their lethal skills.
Imagine "Forrest Gump" in the First Gulf War, and you've got the basics of "Jarhead." Definitely a movie not to bolster recruiting efforts, this indulgent, two-hour plus marathon chronicles a young man's odyssey from Boot Camp to the deserts of Saudi Arabia on the eve of war. The opening five minutes when we watch Swofford submit to a driller instructor's abuse pales considerably with similar shenanigans in "Full Metal Jacket" or Sidney Furie's "The Boys in Company C" (1978). Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx of "Ray") convinces Swoffas he is later calledto try out for sniper school. Miraculously, Swoff turns out to be a crack shot. The snipers train until they can space three shots into a dime-sized circle on a target. Eventually, Swofford and his sniper sidekick Troy (Peter Sarsgaard of "Flightplan") get their chance to zero an Iraqi officer into their cross-hairs when a free-wheeling Marine Major (Dennis Haysbert of "Absolute Power") intervenes and orders them to stand down, so the Air Force can not only wipe the enemy officers out but also surprise the troops on the ground. Instead of seeing service, our Marine heroes languish in a limbo of sorts that exacts both a physical and emotional toll on them. "Jarhead" dispels many heroic myths about the American fighting man and the way he juggles the fear and anxiety that precedes combat.
"Donnie Darko" star Jake Gyllenhaal is wholly believable as the title character who originally wanted nothing to do with the Marine Corps. Gyllenhaal plays Lance Corporal Swofford as a multi-faceted, down-to-earth individual who alternately appears gung-ho among his comrades as well as anxious of what lies ahead against the overwhelming numbers of Saddam's army. He refuses to imitate stereotypical Hollywood warriors, like John Wayne's invincible sergeant in "Sands of Iwo Jima" (1949), and creates a memorable character that stands out because he is as vulnerable as he is virile. As goofy as Gyllenhaal looks with his vacant-eyed stare, he delivers a performance that combines comedy with drama in a way that Tom Hanks excelled at before he packed on the pounds for pretentious movies like "The Green Mile" (1999) and "Cast Away" (2001). "Sling Blade" co-star Lucas Black stands out as a plain-spoken Texas redneck who cries censorship when Jamie Foxx's staff sergeant warns him about what he can tell the press. After last summer's debacle of "Stealth," Oscar-winner Jamie Foxx has a role that he can truly sink his chops into and his multi-dimensional performance as a hard-bitten but compassionate non-com lifer. "Jarheads" serves up lusty below-the-belt laughs galore, muscular performances by a sturdy cast, but this occasionally fatigue-inducing, non-combat outing suffers. Primarily, "Jarhead" undercuts any substance that it might have had with its lightweight portrayal of Marines in limbo and the First Gulf War that it covers is as anti-climactic as the filmmakers' decision not to entangle themselves in the sticky politics that landed American's fighting men for the first time in Saudi Arabia.