Directed by:
Sam MendesScreenplay:
William Broyles Jr.Cinematography:
Roger DeakinsComposer:
Thomas NewmanCast:
Jake Gyllenhaal, Jamie Foxx, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper, Dennis Haysbert, Kevin Foster, Lucas Black, Laz Alonso, Rini Bell, James Morrison, John Krasinski (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows Swoff (Gyllenhaal) from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he sports a sniper rifle through Middle East deserts that provide no cover from the heat or Iraqi soldiers. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand against an enemy they can't see for a cause they don't fully grasp. (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (14)
I’m thrilled. A slightly different, but no less interesting view of military conflict, which goes the way of depicting the feelings and frustrations that must be experienced by guys trained in elite units only to cover the backs of their colleagues deployed directly in the heat of war. We see their eagerness to fight in the scene where they chant and scream with enthusiasm during a screening of the bombing of a Vietnamese village in Coppola's Apocalypse Now, just as I felt first-hand the frustration of one of the characters at not being able to take part in "it". The impressive scene when, with desperation in his eyes, he begs his superior to shoot at least one soldier, has more power and meaning than half an hour of uninterrupted action. When the protagonist vomits among the charred bodies, the more perceptive viewer will shudder. The apocalyptic image with a horse, greasy with oil all over its body, and the burning oil wells glowing into the darkness in the distance, takes on a kind of mystical beauty thanks to the evocative cinematography. Jake Gyllenhaal continues to grow as an actor and delivers a terrific performance (an Oscar nomination would be fitting), with the reliable Jamie Fox backing him up. Not since Russell's Three Kings has there been such a cool war-themed movie.
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An unconventional war/anti-war film, not unlike Platoon, but unfortunately quite difficult for the average viewer, and I admit, even for me. Total boredom in the desert is not completely boring on the screen, but I couldn't fully immerse myself in the rising traumas of the soldiers. And a war film without gunfire simply isn't suspenseful.
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Join up! Uncle Sam wants you! You’ll have a great time with us, get to do some shooting, kill some non-American bastards, protect your country and three meals a day... Or not? Boredom in the desert or Sam Mendes’ third attempt. And again it’s something completely different from his previous movies. This time he brings us a provocative and raw insight into the life of a young marine during the Gulf War. First he undergoes training and then, keen to fight, he is posted to a war where nothing happens and the action he was dreaming about never comes, and all he does is stand on watch amongst sand dunes, waiting and waiting... And waiting. The movie is more a patchwork of individual scenes (especially the one when the soldiers are watching Apocalypse Now I can’t shake out of my head, like many other scenes too), but despite that, or maybe because of that, the movie is really powerful. And we get good elephant doses of sarcasm and satire. In technical terms it is precise (that’s right, the camerawork is almost unreal; the scene with the horse in the middle of the burning oil fields is the peak of perfection), as is the soundtrack. Every one of the actors is great, as they tend to be in Mendes’ movies. Mendes’ directing is again flawless, inventive and seething with ideas. And Jake “Donnie Darko" Gyllenhaal is a chapter in himself, proving again that he is one of the biggest talents of contemporary transatlantic cinema. This picture of boredom in the middle of a modern military conflict and the impact it leaves on its protagonists is even more interesting and chilling because the movie manages to impart this feeling to the viewer too.
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A very weak, uninteresting, tedious, visually repulsive non-action war drama with my favourites Jake Gyllenhaal and Jamie Foxx. I was entertained for barely half an hour with the fine training of the marines, after which I yawned and fumbled my way through to the end and happily deleted the film from the disc. I probably missed the American pathos here. Lone Survivor and American Sniper are so much better. 40%.
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At the beginning heavy-duty boredom that you’ve seen a hundred times in a hundred movies. But later Mendes starts to show us different, more interesting things. Gyllenhaal’s dream-like visions when he pukes up sand, burning oil wells (definite climax of the movie) and soldiers who would do anything to be able to shoot at a live target. Jarhead really is an extraordinary film. It shows the US Army in a different, and maybe finally perhaps a true light. By the way Newman’s soundtrack is just outstanding.
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