Battle scenes are the bread and butter of a typical war film, lending gritty authenticity as well as differentiating it from similar films. Compare and contrast the chaotic jungle combat of 'Platoon' with the thoroughly unsettling Russian roulette sequences in 'The Deer Hunter' or the sweeping, Wagner-scored helicopter raid in 'Apocalypse Now' to see how differently Vietnam was interpreted by three maverick directors.
'American Beauty' director Sam Mendes has clearly studied these films and their different techniques, but with his new film 'Jarhead,' he delivers one of the least conventional and best war films ever made.
'Jarhead' is based on the memoirs of Anthony 'Swoff' Swofford, a third-generation Marine enlistee who wrote about fighting as a sniper in the Gulf War. He must first make it through a hellish, emasculating boot camp experience (In the R. Lee Ermey tradition, the drill sergeant makes a profane attack on Gyllenhaal's heterosexuality in the film's first five minutes) before bunking with a group of other snipers, including his spotter and eventual best friend Troy (Peter Sarsgaard).
After training, their unit is shipped out to Kuwait, where they spend the rest of the war discovering the tragic remnants of warfare and restlessly waiting around to kill something. A war film without much actual war is peculiar indeed, but Mendes focuses on the tumultuous daily life of the Marines and the inevitable drama and conflict that emerges from their inexorable boredom.
'Jarhead' closely examines the vulgar boys' club dynamic in the barracks with insight and wit'cleverly shifting from scorpion fights to ill-fated drunken carousing and what has to be the nastiest Dear John letter in cinematic history.
An entertaining, ongoing conflict has Swoff and his cohorts continually testing their hardass commanding officer (Jamie Foxx) who responds in turn with cruel and tedious punishments, including an impromptu football game in the 110 degree heat with the men decked out in full chemical gear.
Although 'Jarhead' has been compared, often unfavorably, to Stanley Kubrick's seminal 'Full Metal Jacket,' the movie is thematically closer to Clint Eastwood's 'Heartbreak Ridge' and especially to Gregor Jordans woefully underrated 'Buffalo Soldiers.' Where Joaquin Phoenix and his fellow drug-dealing, scheming officers in Cold War-era Germany had nothing but time to kill'a sentiment stridently echoed by Swoff and company's exploits in 'Jarhead.'
However, Mendes delves deeper into the psychological ramifications of inaction, and the result is a potent sexual metaphor that serves as a searing meditation on war in general. In 'Full Metal Jacket,' Gunnery Sgt. Hartman forged the bond between men and their rifles by forcing his charges to memorize and recite a brief oath to their rifles.
Kubrick also had Hartman browbeat his recruits into giving their rifle a girl's name, stating 'this is the only pussy you people are going to get.' But after the jarring end of the boot- camp sequence, the sexual metaphor was abandoned, and Kubrick's film became a rather unfocused hodgepodge of skirmishes that culminated in a haunting, bizarre confrontation with a female sniper'still exceptional, but not up to the standards set by Ermey and Vincent D'Onofrio in the boot-camp half of the film.
'Jarhead,' on the other hand, is more sexually frank than perhaps any other war movie ever made, with its wry observations on frequent masturbation and sexual jealousy and insecurity.
In addition to the pervasive 'I fucked your wife last night' style of ribbing and graffiti-laden shrines of women, 'Jarhead' closely documents how men and their aggression were whipped up and molded into a trigger-happy, masculine frenzy for which there would be no release.
Whether they are hydrating and training endlessly or getting riled up by (and grossly misinterpreting) the exhilarating helicopter raid of 'Apocalypse Now,' these jarheads will never consummate their lust to fight, just as they'll never actually have sex with anyone in the barren, Iraqi desert.
With its repeated instances of the rifle oath being recited, in addition to the clarity and poise with which Mendes executes the second half, 'Jarhead' deserves credit for improving upon crucial aspects of 'Full Metal Jacket' that came across as half-baked and truncated. Mendes manages to coax wonderful performances out of his cast, especially from Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard, who just may end up securing Oscar nominations for their work here. Chris Cooper and Dennis Haysbert have incisive cameos, and Foxx is terrific in his first decent film since 'Ray.'
The writing of William Broyles Jr. captures the acerbic spirit of Swofford's memoir, and ace cinematographer Roger Deakins creates devastatingly beautiful imagery for a war notable for its lack of distinctive images. The Gulf War as filtered through CNN was a stunning success replete with air raids and explosions, but the troops on the ground were largely ignored.
While Deakins captures the bleached-out wasteland look popularized by other Gulf War films like David O. Russell's 'Three Kings,' he also gives spectacular scenes of blazing oil fields and the tragic, ashen aftermath of air raids.
Only time will tell whether 'Jarhead' will be deemed a success. It has been called 'rife with ambivalence' and 'oddly amorphous,' both of which are largely empty criticisms that recall the foolish critical dissent over Mendes' last film, the stylishly eloquent 'Road to Perdition.'
'Jarhead' is not the timid Oscar bait that many must have thought it would be; it is a hugely atypical war film, but a fresh, invigorating one with brass balls. 'Every war is different, every war is the same,' Gyllenhaal muses towards the end of 'Jarhead''a succinct statement that reinforces Mendes's film's lofty ambitions. 'Jarhead' is uncommonly timely and appropriate, and it can also be said to be one of this year's absolute best films.
