From Anthony Swofford’s Gulf War I memoir, director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, The Road To Perdition) has purposely fashioned a film that closely replicates the experience of being stuck in an eternal stationary queue. Jarhead is a war movie with no combat whatsoever and no real war to speak of.
Throughout, Mendes, ever the plundering stylist, persistently references the classics while creating some stunning tableaux of his own. Oil wells blaze against the night, the charred remains of a traffic jam becomes a new Pompeii. But much of the film makes you think ‘not quite’. Back in the marine boot camp, protagonist Swoff (Gyllenhaal) gets barked at by his drill sergeant (Foxx) and pummelled by his colleagues in a manner that’s not quite Full Metal Jacket. Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard quickly master the sniper’s art, then bond in a way that’s not quite Platoon.
Bound for Operation Desert Storm, the marines (or jarheads by their own dumbed way down terminology) take in Apocalypse Now and get psyched up singing along with Wagner. It’s much like the time the Gremlins took in Snow White but with scarier, dumber creatures.
And then we wait. After 175 days kicking sand in the Middle East, the war officially begins only to end before anyone in the company has completed a mission. There’s no punch-line (unless it’s by Baudrillard) and there’s no climax.
While the pointlessness is entirely the point, it’s hard to recommend. Jarhead may be clever, gorgeous in places and beautifully performed, but a war movie isn’t an episode of Seinfeld – it can’t be about nothing. The film’s pointed de-dramatisation of events is ultimately as frustrating for the viewer as it is for the bored redundant marines it depicts. Equally, Mendes’ allusions to more action packed Vietnam War films may provide a fitting counterpoint to the inertia but they don’t half make you wish you were somewhere else. Like watching Apocalypse Now.
Still, it’s commendable that he’s chosen to ask ‘Why are we here?’ at this time. When the Gulf War is all over before teatime, hero Swoff consoles himself with the knowledge that “We never have to come back to this shithole again.” If only he had got that in writing…