Jarhead
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard
Directed by: Sam Mendes

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Rating: 3 (out of 5)

Oh noes! It's a left-leaning movie critic reviewing a movie about the first Gulf War! He's gonna get all political and shit! He's gonna make fun of the Bush family and get all Cindy Sheehan on our asses. Run! RUUUUUUN!!!!

Oh please. I know for a FACT that some of you guys thought that. Relax though...I'm a movie critic, and this is a movie review. I prefer to leave the politics to some of North America's finer minds. But, since most "finer" minds seem to be too smart to get involved in politics, you'll have to look up jerks like Anne Coulter and Al Franken.

In fact, just to prove how UN-political I am, I thought I'd indulge in some free-form "verse":

In the grand scheme of things
Many people have strong opinions
People who want to influence the way you think
Every day
As if they
Control your very heads and
Hearts

But I'm not one of those people
Undermining your thoughts
So let's get on with the review and
Have some fun laughing at my dick and fart jokes

Oh sweet mother of Neptune, I'm so fucking clever...

"Oh, I suppose you think you're SMART now, don't you?"

Anyway, the movie is Jarhead, based on the best-selling memoir of the first Gulf War by a Marine named Anthony Swofford. I've never read the book, but to be fair, these days I don't read ANYTHING that doesn't have "Harry Potter" in the title. If the book had been called Harry Potter And The Months Of Ennui In Saudi Arabia I'd have snapped it up faster than Tom Cruise in the "L. Ron Hubbard" section of Barnes and Noble.

I'm not even a big fan of war movies. As far as I'm concerned, the genre pretty much begins and ends with Full Metal Jacket. Unless the movie you advertise is BETTER than Kubrick's masterpiece, I'm pretty ambivalent. Plus, I love profane drill sergeants.

Fortunately, a profane drill sergeant opens this movie up. It turns out that Swofford (Gyllenhaal) joined to Corps mostly out of boredom and pressure. His father had been in Vietnam, other relatives had served, and I guess his thought process consisted of "Eh, what the fuck?" Which, by the way, is ALWAYS a good reason to join the military and put yourself in front of bullets.

Surprisingly, the Marines didn't get the "Beatles-esque" greeting in Saudi Arabia that they were expecting...

Well, he doesn't much care for the Marines at first. In a sequence that really invokes Full Metal Jacket - although not as entertaining - he has to deal with a psychotic drill sergeant and even crazier Marines. In fact, when he first gets to the barracks, they grab him and try to "brand" him. But don't worry...it's all just a harmless hazing ritual...albeit one that leaves him tied to the foot of his bed and passed out from fear. But hey, on the plus side...oh who am I kidding...there IS no plus side.

During his first few weeks, he befriends Troy (Sarsgaard), who loves nothing more than military life. He also comes to the attention of Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx), who thinks he might have what it takes to be a sniper. HOW he comes to that conclusion, however, is a total mystery. After all, "Swoff" is a pseudo-intellectual who fakes illness and spends his time reading Camus (who, as I said to Woody Allen, can do...but Sartre is smart-re). So, apparently a chicken-shit pseudo-intellectual is sniper material. Hey, I can do him one better...I'm a chicken-shit psuedo-intellectual who kicks ass playing as a sniper in Ghost Recon on my Xbox. So there.

Gyllenhaal prepares to take the head off of notorious terrorist Bazooka Joe.

So anyway, he gets the gig, with Troy as his partner. Interesting piece of trivia here...apparently snipers work in pairs. You learn something every day.

And then, of course, they get sent to Saudi Arabia, because Iraq has just invaded Kuwait. They're expecting to see some action (or "The suck," in Marine jargon) any day now. But in the meantime, they just have to wait.

And wait...and wait....and wait....and before you know it, the movie's 2/3 over and NOTHING HAS FUCKING HAPPENED YET.

It turns out that Desert Storm was mostly fought from the air...I guess that was obvious to people who watched a lot of news back in the early 90s. I wasn't watching a lot of news...I was too busy getting drunk, listening to Guns 'N' Roses, and begging for handjobs from white trash chicks with crimped hair. Hey, Swoff had his priorities, and I had mine. At any rate, the result was that ground troops were more or less stranded in the desert, trying to keep themselves sane by any means possible.

Sadly, even in the blazing desert sun, with those heavy gasmasks on, they're STILL better than the Packers.

It turns out, most of those means involve either jerking off, talking about jerking off, talking about having sex with their girlfriends back home, and occasionally pretending to have gay sex in front of news crews. It's funny...for a branch of the military that's apparently petrified of gay people, they spent a lot of time nearly naked and pretending to dry-hump each other. In fact, one key scene gives us the unpleasant image of Gyllenhaal drunk and naked except for a Santa hat he's wearing as a makeshift G-String. This is these Marines' version of "partying". Sorry, but THAT kind of party seems more geared toward Fire Island than a military outpost in the middle of the desert.

Of course, it makes a certain kind of sense as well. After all, these guys want nothing more than to fire their guns. They can't, so they're firing their "guns" instead. If this seems like a thinly-veiled metaphor linking sex and violence, that's because it is. Director Mendes is about as subtle as a jackhammer here.

Yes, Peter...your penis is THIS BIG...we get it.

Eventually, stuff happens, but nothing much. I don't want to spoil anything, but it's the cinematic equivalent of watching soft-core porn for 90 minutes, then blowing your nut the second you touch yourself. Not that it's ever happened to ME...but it's happened to...uh...a friend of mine. Yeah, that's the ticket.

Jarhead isn't a BAD movie, but I certainly hope that you're not expecting a WAR movie. This is a "waiting for war" movie. Blame the marketing department for that one...I guess advertising this movie as a bunch of barely-dressed sexually-repressed macho men wouldn't have played well outside of the Castro.

Yet, I'm still giving this a slim recommendation. For starters, I've got to respect the fact that they tell the story in the fashion they do. These days especially, you wouldn't expect a movie about a war against Iraq to have as little action as this. But hey, this is what HAPPENED. The reason we haven't heard more stories like this up until now is because the Entertainment Powers That Be had, for some reason, decided that we wouldn't want a character-based story about war without the killing of dusky-coloured people who have weird non-Christian religious beliefs.

"Hey guys...I'm reading the script, and nothing happens in IT either. I thought this was a war movie?"

And yet, it's still PAINFULLY slow. Yes, I get the fact that as slow as WE think it is, the poor guys over there had it worse. At the same time, I think a jizz-mopper has a boring job too, but I don't want to drop 12 bucks to see a year out of HIS life either. This movie is definitely interesting...but I'm not sure how entertaining it is.

It's definitely well made, and for the most part well acted. Mendes does a solid job of advancing what little story he has to work with. And there are some scenes that managed to really stick with me. In one, a Marine gets what he thinks is a tape of The Deer Hunter from his wife back home. As it turns out, it's a tape of her fucking their neighbour. That's some cold shit right there. In fact, infidelity plays a HUGE part in the movie. And to be honest, it moved me. I can't imagine anything WORSE than signing up to defend my country, only to have my girlfriend/wife rub it in my face by fucking some other guy. There's a special place in hell reserved for people who do that.

"You're not looking very fucking JOLLY, Marine! Now drop and give me 20 'Ho Ho Ho's!!"

Sarsgaard is phenomenal, as always. I'm starting to feel like a pimp for this guy, but the truth his I think he's one of the best actors - if not THE best - working today. He's just as good here in a fairly big-budget picture as he in a smaller, independent picture. And Jamie Foxx is fantastic as well...this cat can ACT. There are some other decent performances, but they're from lesser-known actors playing generally unimportant characters.

But Gyllenhaal...I've got to be honest...all I can say is "meh". I guess overall he's not BAD...but he's far from GREAT. On top of that, I'm going to get very shallow and say that he just doesn't LOOK the part. With the standard "jarhead" haircut he sports, he kind of looks just like a nearly-bald head with 2 HUGE doe-like eyes. Sure, in real life a deadly-accurate sniper probably DOES look like that...average, unassuming, what have you. But in terms of the movie-biz, he just doesn't have the look to pull off this part.

"Is there something YOU'D all rather be doing than marching about the desert? You'd all rather be at the pictures, I suppose..."

I feel justified in saying so after the number of times I've been told that I don't LOOK the part of a role I'm auditioning for. What can I say? I'm a shallow guy with issues and an open forum to say whatever bitter bullshit I feel like. On top of that, however, the TRULY objective part of me still thinks his performance is passable at BEST, and definitely not lead-character caliber. He's supposed to be carrying this story, and he just doesn't.

And then, there's the ending. Again, I don't want to give anything away, but Something Bad happens to one of the main characters. The problem is...you never find out WHAT happens, or WHY, or HOW. This Bad Thing just happens, with no explanation. I'm calling foul on that, because quite frankly it's CLEARLY supposed to have a dramatic impact. After all, this character had just spent 2 hours with us. Then all of a sudden, a Mystery Event happens...and we never learn what it is. That's bullshit, and quite frankly lazy. Either EXPAND on the event and throw us a bone, or cut it out entirely. I can't react emotionally if I don't know WHY I'm supposed to do so. Plus, it's an anticlimactic way to end what's been an interesting, yet surprisingly uneventful film.

Aw, poor Peter's "gun" went off early. Don't worry...it happens to ALL men from time to time.

Overall, I've got to be honest...I liked Jarhead more than I thought I would, but less than I could have. I left feeling as empty and unfulfilled as those poor soldiers who never saw action. That's probably what Mendes INTENDED, so bravo. But at the same time, that's not why I go to see a war movie.

Now, if you'll excuse me, the Secret Service is at my door. Apparently, they don't like my free-form verse. I can't imagine why not...

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