Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a little look at Sam Mendes' Gulf War flick JARHEAD, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard and Jamie Foxx.
First off, I'm a big fan of Sam Mendes' film work. I love AMERICAN BEAUTY and still love ROAD TO PERDITION. He's got a fantastic visual flair that is second only to his character work. The man casts great actors and pulls great performances out of them.
My big disappointment tonight did not come from JARHEAD, a flick I really like, but is instead due to not getting the new trailer for KONG which is supposed to be attached to the print. Oh, well. I guess I'll just have to watch that "look inside" behind the scenes thing to get my Kong fix. "Yeah, get that fuckin' bi-plane!!!" Well, now you've gotten a little peek into my sad existence. But back to JARHEAD.
I don't know what the overall audience thought of the film, but it seemed to be received rather schizophrenically... there was a good amount of applause after the movie, but every conversation I overheard as I walked back to my car seemed to be, "I wanted more..." or "I expect it to be better..."
The movie is about a newbie who has signed up to the United States Marine Corp. in 1989. It starts off so much like FULL METAL JACKET that I was actually a little surprised. The framing, the recruits lined up, the yelling drill sergeant vomiting up foul insults, the color... It was all so much like FULL METAL JACKET that I have to believe that Mendes knew the two films would draw comparisons, so he just said, "I'll give them this scene right up front, so we can move on and get to my movie..." He smartly gets out of basic training very quickly and plops in Jamie Foxx as Sgt. Siek who is a badass, but not the stereotypical thick necked red faced screaming sergeant.
The movie, much like the first Gulf War, doesn't have a big place to build to. The film is all about the characters waiting for the shit to start, the crazy bastard in the platoon, the quiet killers, the average kid just dreaming about going home, the life-time Marines... They're all there. Being a good character drama, very few of the characters start out as one of the above listed types and end up the same way. The Gyllenhaal character goes through at least 3 of those above listed character types before the movie ends.
I think a lot of people are disappointed by the lack of big screen battle in the film. While I would have loved to seen Mendes approach a huge war epic, this isn't that story. The movie is based on a book by Anthony Swofford, the character Gyllenhaal plays. It's a true account of what he went through, which means very little in terms of battle. WW2 and Vietnam will be the best cinematic war periods because there was so much drama in the battles. Here the drama lies with the characters, who don't get off one shot before the war is over.
I know there is a lot of worry about whether or not the film will be preachy, either pro-war or anti-war. The flick has a moment where one of the characters, the one who questions the authority of the brass more than any others, starts to go into the "This is only a war for oil... who do you think gave Saddam his weapons in the first place? We did!" rant, but he's cut off by one of the other characters. They tell him politics don't matter. They're there. Everything else is bullshit.
The film is what it is, the story not telling you which side to take. You take out of the movie only what you take in with you, much like Yoda's fucked up tree. The desire to serve one's country is there, the camaraderie is there, the humanity of the soldiers is there, the racism is there, the fuck ups that killed more soldiers than the enemy did is there, the despicable side of humans at war is there. It's a melting pot, but it's never preachy one way or the other.
The performances are great throughout, as you would expect from a Mendes flick. Gyllenhaal is shaping up to be one of the finest actors of our generation. He's got a focus and intensity that is truly striking. Sarsgaard is more quiet, but just as affecting. Jamie Foxx is a lot of fun in the movie, playing the hardass sergeant of our little group. I don't know if he's Oscar worthy, but he's definitely continuing to prove himself as an actor with the right stuff.
On the whole, I found myself never really getting personally invested in the story. I can't really explain it. I really liked the movie a lot, thought it was masterfully directed, had some great imagery (the oil fields on fire were haunting) and had some amazing performances, but I never once lost myself in the story. I don't know why I felt that distance, but it was definitely there.
Don't think that the distance translated to boredom for me. I was always engaged with what I saw onscreen. I think it's a really damn solid movie, but I never had that personal investment that I'm used to having in movies I like this much. Weird.
So there you have it. My thoughts on the flick. I have a backlog of movies that need reviewing as well as 3 interviews to transcribe for ya'. Look for the bulk of that stuff to hit sometime this week! Until then, this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu.
-Quint
