Jarhead

It's been a long time, relatively speaking, since I went to the movies. So long in fact that I can't recall what movie it was I saw? Today, my one day off in a run of working 10 of 11 days, I decided to unwind and go see something. Since my desire to see movies has subsided lately, mostly due to the fact that everything that comes out looks like shit, I didn't really care what movie I saw. I liked American Beauty a lot, but didn't care for Road to Perdition, so it's not like I'm a Sam Mendes fan. Considering that he is married to Kate Winslet, who I adore, that's almost reason enough for me to boycott his latest directorial offering Jarhead.

However, I liked the idea of a movie that focuses on the first Gulf War now that we have some perspective on it and one that doesn't play out like Three Kings (a great movie, but a little on the Oceans 11 tip) hopefully. Jake Gyllenhaal is an actor that I like but can't seem to figure out why. It's not like his resume is uber impressive, and he is on again/off again banging one of my potential wives in Kirsten Dunst which makes me hate him a little bit, but he has such a great way of playing these understated thinkers. The Good Girl, Donnie Darko, even his role in The Day After Tomorrow were all slightly off center, deep guys and he emotes a lot of things through his facial expressions. Jarhead offers him an opportunity to once again strut out the pouty faces and the quiet, tortured guy routine to it's desired effect. And it works.

What really separates this movie from other war movies is the lack of any real war taking place. The movie is about the boredom of waiting for an actual ground war that never happens. If you recall from our first foray into Iraq, we basically blew them up from the air for a couple days and it was all over. The guys who were trained to kill never got a shot and basically jerked off and waited for a Dear John letter to show up from their girlfriend or wife back home while roasting in the desert, or at least that is what Anthony Swofford, author and veteran, wants you to think took place. It's a tad difficult to have a movie come out about the Gulf War while 2000 kids have died in Iraq during the most recent war and not have it make you think about the situation we are in. But the movie isn't set up to make you sympathize with any one except the Jarheads, the Marines who are there to fight for our country whether they want to or not. This is an exploration of men, not a dissection of the war and for that reason I liked it. The soundtrack and score add some drama and intensity that the war never gets a chance to, and the visuals of the vastness of the desert are stunning.

Full Metal Jacket is the closest comparison I could make for this flick. The basic training sequence plays out quicker in this film, and there is less blood shed (obviously), but the tone is very similar. Examining the psyche of a 20 year old who willingly joins the Corps is risky, especially when the back drop is a war that wasn't really a war and is an afterthought at this point, but Mendes and company do a nice job.