marbury1414
01/29/06, 03:35 PM
My review of Jarhead. Originally published at www.breeddifferentmedia.net
Tell me what you think.
After watching Sam Mendes’ latest movie Jarhead, you can’t help but feel a heavy sense of disappointment. Not necessarily in the movie itself, but in the way the Marines felt. The problem lies in the fact that the movie is solely about the feelings of the Marines, so if they feel let down at the end, it makes you feel that same way as you finish watching it.
Jarhead opens with several scenes of Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) being belittled quite humorously at boot camp by a character who seems to be somewhat of an homage to the Sergeant Hartman character of Full Metal Jacket. The humor that starts the movie carries on throughout the entirety of it and gives a strong counterpoint to the inner turmoil that dominates the soldiers’ minds. The story follows Swofford throughout his training to become a scout sniper and eventually his stint into active duty during the Gulf War. Jake Gyllenhaal proves himself to be one of Hollywood’s next up and coming stars in a great performance that ranges from dealing with the sheer boredom of day to day life in the desert to being pushed almost to his breaking point in one of the most intense scenes in the movie where he screams at one of his fellow soldiers to shoot him. This is not a traditional war movie and as it nears its end you start to realize, the soldiers aren’t going to be able to do what they were trained to: fight.
Some people may say this movie has no significant theme, as it takes no stance either way on the politics of war in the Middle East (said directly by Peter Sarsgaard in the movie: “fuck politics”) and has a war where there is no fighting. I feel on the contrary that this movie has an extremely strong theme about how war and the military as a social institution fucks people up whether they fight or not. Most people believe that it’s only the fighting and killing that changes people, and while no one is arguing that that is strong factor, this movie shows that the simple fact that the military is training these soldiers to completely lose their identity and have their sole purpose be to kill changes them for life whether they fight or not. The movie is innovative merely for the fact that Sam Mendes took a type of movie that is generally pretty straight forward, and brought a whole new theme to it that is generally over looked.
The movie takes the theme of the soldiers’ feelings in the moment and projects on how they might be in the future as well. Peter Sarsgaard foreshadows it early on in the film when in response to a discussion about what happens when you get to the high level of a video game he says, “Nothing, it just starts all over again.” It seems quite odd when you see it early on in the movie but makes a whole lot of sense later when the soldiers aren’t able to fight. This comes full circle at the end when a veteran jumps on their bus when they are returning from the war and welcomes them all back home. You can tell the veteran is in his element for a moment, and suddenly when that moment passes he looks distraught, out of sorts, and almost confused. As all the soldiers look silently upon him, they can see the veteran as a mirror to what they will be in the future and it is downright depressing.
A movie with complex emotions running through it but no big movie payoff at the end, Jarhead is a movie I would recommend seeing without hoping for the traditional war movie.
Rating: 3.5/4 stars
- Danny Schmidt
Tell me what you think.
After watching Sam Mendes’ latest movie Jarhead, you can’t help but feel a heavy sense of disappointment. Not necessarily in the movie itself, but in the way the Marines felt. The problem lies in the fact that the movie is solely about the feelings of the Marines, so if they feel let down at the end, it makes you feel that same way as you finish watching it.
Jarhead opens with several scenes of Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) being belittled quite humorously at boot camp by a character who seems to be somewhat of an homage to the Sergeant Hartman character of Full Metal Jacket. The humor that starts the movie carries on throughout the entirety of it and gives a strong counterpoint to the inner turmoil that dominates the soldiers’ minds. The story follows Swofford throughout his training to become a scout sniper and eventually his stint into active duty during the Gulf War. Jake Gyllenhaal proves himself to be one of Hollywood’s next up and coming stars in a great performance that ranges from dealing with the sheer boredom of day to day life in the desert to being pushed almost to his breaking point in one of the most intense scenes in the movie where he screams at one of his fellow soldiers to shoot him. This is not a traditional war movie and as it nears its end you start to realize, the soldiers aren’t going to be able to do what they were trained to: fight.
Some people may say this movie has no significant theme, as it takes no stance either way on the politics of war in the Middle East (said directly by Peter Sarsgaard in the movie: “fuck politics”) and has a war where there is no fighting. I feel on the contrary that this movie has an extremely strong theme about how war and the military as a social institution fucks people up whether they fight or not. Most people believe that it’s only the fighting and killing that changes people, and while no one is arguing that that is strong factor, this movie shows that the simple fact that the military is training these soldiers to completely lose their identity and have their sole purpose be to kill changes them for life whether they fight or not. The movie is innovative merely for the fact that Sam Mendes took a type of movie that is generally pretty straight forward, and brought a whole new theme to it that is generally over looked.
The movie takes the theme of the soldiers’ feelings in the moment and projects on how they might be in the future as well. Peter Sarsgaard foreshadows it early on in the film when in response to a discussion about what happens when you get to the high level of a video game he says, “Nothing, it just starts all over again.” It seems quite odd when you see it early on in the movie but makes a whole lot of sense later when the soldiers aren’t able to fight. This comes full circle at the end when a veteran jumps on their bus when they are returning from the war and welcomes them all back home. You can tell the veteran is in his element for a moment, and suddenly when that moment passes he looks distraught, out of sorts, and almost confused. As all the soldiers look silently upon him, they can see the veteran as a mirror to what they will be in the future and it is downright depressing.
A movie with complex emotions running through it but no big movie payoff at the end, Jarhead is a movie I would recommend seeing without hoping for the traditional war movie.
Rating: 3.5/4 stars
- Danny Schmidt