November 6, 2005 -- “Jarhead” is not your typical war movie. There are no battles. The war passes the soldiers by and leaves them behind. The ground forces in the Gulf War, like the U.S. Marines depicted in the film, must have felt a bit like the cavalry in World War II, left behind, outmoded by the onward rush of technology. This film is more about basic training, camaraderie and the awful psychological toll on the men as they wait, seemingly forever, in the Kuwaiti desert. It seems the war will never begin. Back home, life goes on, and again, the soldiers are left behind as their wives and girlfriends move on without them. They are suspended in time and space in an unreal land. The R-rated film is also very raunchy with foul language and explicit sex scenes.

Jake Gyllenhaal (“The Good Girl”) stars as Swoff, short for Anthony Swofford, the soldier who wrote the autobiographical book on which this film is based. Swoff is a third-generation military man who joins the Marines in December of 1988 and found out that he hated it. Spotted by Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx of “Ray”) he is cleverly tricked into trying out for a sniper squad. He is hooked on being a sniper and becomes one of the very best in the squad. He is pared with spotter Troy (played by Peter Sarsgaard of “Kinsey”). Troy's calm exterior hides a very troubled past and a molten temper. The two men make a good team.

We follow the men through training and on to Kuwait, where they wait for the first Gulf War to begin, and wait, and wait. The men play, party, train and hydrate. Nerves fray and finally shatter when “Dear John” letters begin to arrive. A “Hall of Shame” poster goes up, featuring the photos of wives and girlfriends who left the soldiers for other men back home. Months drag by with no relief from the boredom and the pain of separation from their homes and families. They begin to go crazy. For some, the trip from sanity to insanity is a short one. The soldiers have an intense love-hate relationship with the Marine Corps.

Finally, the war starts, but that doesn't end the frustration. The war is scary, but the enemy is frustratingly elusive. The battlefields, including the burning Kuwaiti oil fields, are surreal, forming a hellish nighttime landscape with a toxic oil rain coming down from the sky. The road between Kuwait City and Basrah, “The Highway of Death,” is another surreal wartime landscape, an endless line of burned vehicles and bodies stretching on to infinite distance. The story is filled with irony, with dark humor, with absurdity and with tragedy. Most of the men killed in combat operations in the story die as a result of “friendly fire” when U.S. military aircraft mistakenly hit the wrong targets. In the final hours of the short-lived war, Troy and Swoff finally get a combat assignment but it all goes wrong in a hurry. More frustration. Troy and Swoff return to a bizarre victory party in the middle of nowhere.

The story doesn't glorify war, or the military, and it doesn't take sides on war, either. It shows soldiers as young men who are flawed, who don't really understand what the war is all about, and they really do want to kill people. This is the kind of truth that is often avoided in war films. Soldiers are often portrayed as reluctant, heroic warriors. In this film, the soldiers are frustrated because they haven't gotten the opportunity to kill the enemy. Maybe if they had actually seen combat, their attitude would have been different. This is a very specific story about a very specific group of men and what happened to them. It would be a mistake to, as George Will is fond of saying, use this specific story as an excuse to “commit sociology.” As Swoff says in the film, he was dumb enough to sign away his freedom in a life-or-death, no-exit military contract when he was just 18 years old, so you can't really look to him for wisdom.

The film features great acting by everyone involved. There are some very scary guys in this ensemble. The cinematography by the award-winning Roger Deakins (“The Shawshank Redemption”) is superb, capturing the desolate desert landscapes to perfection (it was filmed in the deserts of California and Mexico, among other places). Production values are excellent by a top-notch award-winning team, including director Sam Mendes (“Road to Perdition” and “American Beauty”). The production designer, Dennis Gassner, editor Walter Murch and costume designer Albert Wolsky are all Academy Award® winners. The screenplay was written by William Broyles, Jr. (“Apollo 13”). Broyles is also a combat veteran. While the film does capture the absurdity of war, like “Three Kings” and “M.A.S.H.” before it, the story is somewhat emotionally detatched. This makes the film less compelling that it otherwise might be. It rates a B.

Click here for links to places to buy or rent this movie in video and/or DVD format, or to buy the soundtrack, posters, books, even used videos, games, electronics and lots of other stuff. I suggest you shop at least two of these places before buying anything. Prices seem to vary continuously. For more information on this film, click on this link to The Internet Movie Database. Type in the name of the movie in the search box and press enter. You will be able to find background information on the film, the actors, and links to much more information.

Copyright © 2005 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

Robert Roten can be reached via e-mail at .