Review of Jarhead (2005) by Ivan D — 02 Jun 2010

A unique war picture that has not shown the madness through the endless violence, but exposed it from the inside out. Sam Mendes, one of the capable directors working today, has reversed the message of his masterpiece "American Beauty".

If that film shows an imploding nightmare in suburban existence, "Jarhead" fearlessly portrayed the dismal boredom resulting in soldiers' grotesque pastimes in the midst of an escalating war.

Jake Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard gave powerful yet natural performances as Swoff and Troy respectively. They need not emulate marines at war, but instead let out honest emotions on how a normal person would react to nothingness and scorching heat.

It might not be copying images from Herzog's "Lessons of Darkness", but Sam Mendes has also succeeded to turn the fiery Kuwaitian oilfields into a piece of art. Although the film touches major emotional issues frequently encountered by military drafts(anxiety, disillusionment, superficial hunger of war), "Jarhead" is one of the most profane war films ever made.

But the vulgarities were often justified, it was just really wolf angst concealing naive sheeps, only "furthered" to lessen the pain.