Jarhead
I know people who were bored shitless by Jarhead, and others who point blank hate it, but for most of the film’s duration I was quite engrossed in the tale of a initially reluctant Marine being sent to protect the Saudi oil fields in the first Gulf War – mainly because the frivolous and pointed mundane scenes portraying the boredom of war felt like they were slowly building up to something – something that never actually eventuates. When the film was over I realised just how empty and unsatisfying it is. Everything it portrays we’ve seen before in the genre, especially in Full Metal Jacket, Tigerland and Buffalo Soldiers, and the film’s themes remain a blurred mystery to me. I’m not talking about the lack of political stance, but rather the point to it all. I have no idea what it was trying to say about life in the military and about war in general, or if indeed it was trying to make a point at all.
Sure, with Mendes’ eye war has rarely, if ever, looked more serenely beautiful, and Gyllenhaal turns in a fine performance, but fuck me if I understood his character. One minute he is a slacker trying to weasel out of duties, the next a sniper obsessed with getting a kill under his belt, the next a scoundrel soldier organising a drunken party, and finally a melancholy man poetically pondering how his experience as a Jarhead will forever stay with him. Once again, no idea is that’s a good thing or not. If the whole point to this was a realistic portrayal of a soldier’s time in the first Gulf War, then perhaps Jarhead is a success, however just because the source material is a poignant or strikingly irreverent memoir doesn’t mean it’s ripe for a film adaptation, especially when the cinematic ground it is covering is such an oft-travelled path.