Jarhead

Serious perspectives of war as hell on earth abound throughout cinema. It's a bit harder to find lighter funny satires. Yet is it worthwhile to look at war without a drop of sentimentality and still maintain a sarcastic tone about how "war is an asshole" even when it's boring? Sam Mendes has undergone a genre metamorphosis and instead of family crises, he observes the negative effects of combat conflict on individuals without firing a single shot. Right from the introduction to when they are at the military staging area, which in a way paraphrases Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, through the uncompromising pouring of ideology into the brains of the soldiers, when it is necessary to declare to the public forever how important it is to fight for one's country, to the (non)encounter with the enemy itself. In this case they are not the Iraqi troops, but rather one's own frustration from unreasonable boredom and endless waiting. When Swofford thinks of his girlfriend, the viewer is tempted to go and pat him sympathetically on the back; when he cleans latrines as punishment, we prefer to turn away. And when the sky turns black and oil rain starts falling from the sky, everyone has to realize that things can't get any worse. Then memories of encounters with a lone horse or a column of Humvees wandering through the desert come to mind and we want to praise cameraman Roger Deakins. Finally, any Foxx - Gyllenhaal debate tells us that the current generation of actors has its aces. And I'm beginning to think that going to war wasn't the happiest decision I’ve ever made. (15/04/2006)

Visually, it was an extremely beautiful film, plot-wise it wasn't that great. While watching Jarhead, I was reminded of many other (and better) films, from Full Metal Jacket and How I Won the War to The Thin Red Line, The Hill and Black Hawk Down, and the story was again the classic confession of one green brain looking for battle. But fortunately it was also peppered with enough humor (which reminds me of the lack of "comedy" in these genres). However, the film is easily pushed above average by the technical processing. Director Mendes and cinematographer Deakins have a blast in the desert, you can almost feel the heat in the film, and from the oil wells being lit to the end, Jarhead is a feast for the eyes. One shot more breathtaking than the next. (16/12/2012)

Join up! Uncle Sam wants you! You’ll have a great time with us, get to do some shooting, kill some non-American bastards, protect your country and three meals a day... Or not? Boredom in the desert or Sam Mendes’ third attempt. And again it’s something completely different from his previous movies. This time he brings us a provocative and raw insight into the life of a young marine during the Gulf War. First he undergoes training and then, keen to fight, he is posted to a war where nothing happens and the action he was dreaming about never comes, and all he does is stand on watch amongst sand dunes, waiting and waiting... And waiting. The movie is more a patchwork of individual scenes (especially the one when the soldiers are watching Apocalypse Now I can’t shake out of my head, like many other scenes too), but despite that, or maybe because of that, the movie is really powerful. And we get good elephant doses of sarcasm and satire. In technical terms it is precise (that’s right, the camerawork is almost unreal; the scene with the horse in the middle of the burning oil fields is the peak of perfection), as is the soundtrack. Every one of the actors is great, as they tend to be in Mendes’ movies. Mendes’ directing is again flawless, inventive and seething with ideas. And Jake “Donnie Darko" Gyllenhaal is a chapter in himself, proving again that he is one of the biggest talents of contemporary transatlantic cinema. This picture of boredom in the middle of a modern military conflict and the impact it leaves on its protagonists is even more interesting and chilling because the movie manages to impart this feeling to the viewer too. (20/02/2006)

After a long, very long time, we have a politically incorrect and properly wild ride that doesn't pretend to be too artistic, like The Thin Red Line, nor does it try to impress the viewer with the naturalism of its combat sequences, like Saving Private Ryan. Jarhead is a cool war caper that masterfully mixes all the necessary ingredients (stunning visuals, excellent actors, a hint of philosophy, and a thoroughly depressing war atmosphere), just in the way as a slightly demanding viewer would like. Some scenes are flawlessly staged, some are funny, some are shocking. But the whole is excellent, and for the first time, this is a film from Sam Mendes that doesn't try to impose on the viewer that he is a great director who only makes artistic stuff (whether it is true or not). Jarhead is a fair affair that grips you and there is no escaping it. (09/08/2006)

I wasn’t expecting much from Mendes, but I really liked Jarhead. I know I'm not the first or the last to write this in a review, but after making a war drama with a penchant for expert psychology, a minimum of real action and a premise seemingly glued together by pathos in such an open, unobtrusive and uncomfortably real way, Mendes deserves, if not outright respect, then certainly deep compliments. It's a chilling account of the horrors of war, easygoing and low-key on the surface, but so powerful and believable inside that it has earned a place in my eyes among the thought-provoking masterpieces that are dominated by Coppola's Apocalypse Now (which also comes to mind quite strongly here). Jarhead may not be the best shot, funniest or most emotionally gripping war story made in Hollywood, and we've seen all of its basic themes in many other films, including some that we now call classics, but it’s one of the few American films that had me believing everything in it. This is where the awkward "based on a true story" caption would work quite nicely:-) 80% (26/08/2013)