Jarhead
By: Patrick Vu | Category: Film Reviews | 11/17/05 | 05:15 PM
When asked why he joined The United States Marine Corps, Swoff (Jake Gyllenhaal) responds, "Sir, I got lost on the way to college, sir!" It sets the tone for the movie as we are taken on a brief journey running circles in the desert with a small unit of scout-snipers destined for greatness but held back by politics.
These boys have nothing to do but train, hydrate, and maintain a constant state of suspicious alertness in between endless hours of masturbation, rewiring walkie-talkies and more masturbation. They patrol empty deserts and comb imaginary mine fields. To boost moral, films like Apocalypse Now and a dubbed over copy of Deer Hunter are used to fuel the testosterone that permeates the camp.
Swoff starts out as innocence personified ready for anything that the war can dish. His unlikely candor earns him jabs and ribbings from his officers and fellow marines but his brains earn him a spot in the much-coveted sniper unit. You sense that there's a toughness buried underneath the dopey smile and as the days turn into weeks and the weeks into months, Swoff's soft exterior hardens as a bold and manic scowl washes over his face. His temperament goes from even to unflinching polarity as he deals with the long distance away from home, the paranoia of his girlfriend's "friend" and the endless wait for a war that inevitably never really comes.
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| Jarhead |
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black (II), Jacob Vargas
Director: Sam Mendes |
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| View the Trailer (Quicktime) |
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The climax comes when he and his spotter, Troy (Peter Sarsgaard), are finally given a chance to fire at the enemy after a chase into the war zone. With their targets in range, the culmination of months and months of training hinges on this one shot, but just as soon as they are given the green light, they are ordered to hold fire in favor of bombs that can do more damage in one full swoop. All they wanted was one chance and one shot. The meaning of their existence and the solidification of their training go unrewarded and unvalidated. Some might say that it defines what the war is all about...meaningless. They might also say that it proved nothing and solved nothing. That's what Jarhead is. It's a film whose meaning isn't found in battle victories but in how a soldier deals with the demons that the war created. The war doesn't even become a reality for these men until it's actually over. Swoff says it best with "Four days, four hours, one minute. That was my war...I never shot my rifle."
Jake Gyllenhaal really shows how under-rated he is as he plays Swoff with an initial blank stare, but then transforms his performance from passive aggressive to an all out tour-de-force that rivals anyone in the cast including oscar winner Jamie Foxx. Forget the unfair comparisons to Tobey Maguire, Gyllenhaal is creating his own identity, and Jarhead is a showcase of his range.
Just as he did with American Beauty, Director Sam Mendes finds humor within the human drama and takes Jarhead beyond the realms of the conventional war flick. Its boldness defines its brilliance and effectively displays a war of the human psyche rather than that on the battlefront. It dives deep into the emotions created by war without having to show the war. There is no heroism, no real war action...just soldiers driven by raw emotion only to be cut short before their goals could be realized. That's the war with which they have to deal. That's the war that is Jarhead.
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Grade: A | Genre: Drama/Dark Humor
