Jarhead

The nickname the Marines get after the way their hair grows because of how it's cut when they enlist, Jarhead is Sam Mendes' follow up to the great crime drama Road to Perdition. Here, the story is about a rookie Marine going to fight in the First Gulf War, or going to not fight actually because that's what they did, and the movie is all about that. It's not anti-war like many are claiming, but is not a war movie either, and there's some political commentary but not much.
Jake Gyllenhaal stars as Anthony 'Swoff' Swofford, the real life soldier who wrote his memoirs from the war into the book the movie is based in, of the same title, adapted for the big screen by Apollo 13 and Cast Away's scribe William Broyles Jr. He's a young man who made a bad turn on his way to college, he says at one point, dumb enough to sign a contract, he says later, and ended up going to The Suck, Saudi Arabia 1990.
But before that Mendes lets us know what the movie will be about, and submerges us in these soldiers lives, not before they joined but during their training camp (purposely like Full Metal Jacket), and as they violently watch Apocalypse Now on the big screen, the helicopter raid scene with Ride of the Valkyries at maximum volume. It's like an orgy for them, they're imitating the movie, they're chanting, they're throwing popcorn and getting pumped up, and so are we. Suddenly the movie is cut, and they are notified that they are going to war, hoorah. Sadam has infiltrated Kuwait, and they must go there to help, and here's the political stuff because they don't go to fight, they go to the middle of nothing in the desert to protect the Saudi's oil refineries, because they're America's friends.

But that's what they are trained do, Swoff's platoon of Scout Snipers, they are trained to fight, and that's all they do, train, rest, and hydrate, all the time under the orders of their insatiable and war loving Staff Sgt. Sykes, who's got a little R. Lee Ermey's Sergeant Hartman going on (it is meant to be that way). The routine is really well narrated to us, taken literally from the book I'm told, but it's also reminiscent of Mendes' American Beauty scene when the lead character tells us what he does all day, both routines including the very important masturbation several times a day. But they also read letters and write home, and his one of the big ideas of the movie, how the war destroys your pre-war life, how the wives and girlfriends back home cheat on you and then send you a tape of her fucking your best friend on camera. It's not like that for everybody, but it is for many.
And so they don't fight, but they do scout, walking aimlessly through the emptiness of the Arab dessert during the day, and then again during the night between the black oil fires that darken the sky and make it rain oil. When the war finally starts, they become Operation Dessert Storm, but as we all know, the war only consisted of a handful of days and it was over. Many, including our heroes, never got the chance to even shot they're riffles once.

Gyllenhaal is excellent here, tremendous energy, charisma, and a pretty great voice over. And he's huge now the way he's bulked up. He's truly one of the best actors of his generation, not a bad performance to date. Peter Sarsgaard is Swoff's sniping spotter Troy, and I'm sad to report is criminally wasted here. He's the second actor in the movie but has nothing to do in it other than a kind of big scene at the end, but before that he's always in the background looking at the situations and bringing some reason to what happens. Everybody has been talking about this being his chance to get awarded by the Academy after being snubbed for Shattered Glass a few years ago and Kinsey last year, but this part is not going to do it. The rest of the jarheads are the usual cliched ones, a black, a Hispanic, a geeky and scared guy, a crazy one (Evan Jones), and the against the war soldier (Lucas Black), but they all play them very good too.
Chris Cooper is only in the movie for 2 scenes, around 5 minutes total, but he's great in it as Lt. Col. Kazinski. Same for Dennis Haysbert who plays another high ranked marine, and John Krasinski from theAmerican versionn of The Office. And then Jamie Foxx as Sykes, following up his Oscar winning performance in Ray last year (yes, I've erased Stealth from my mind already), he's amazing. He's credited "and Jamie Foxx" but he's got more to do and even more lines than many, even Sarsgaard. There are a couple speeches and badass situations where he really shines. If anybody is getting a supporting performance award here, it's him.

The soundtrack is great too. Kanye West, The Doors and Ride of the Valkyries as mentioned before. The movie is also brilliantly shot by cinematographer Roger Deakins, specially those oil fires scenes. The movie is pretty uneventful though, when we are finally going to see what we and the characters have been waiting for the entire time, they are stopped, and a big event occurs that we don't care to see, because it's not what Swoff and Troy wanted.
The uneventfulness caused that the movie didn't blew me away, it was excellent anyway. It's an A-, 9 out of 10, almost perfect. Don't expect FMJ, AN or Platoon, is not that type of movie, but Jarhead is a must see, and one of the best movies of the year.
Like Swoff says, "Every war is different, every war is the same", what's important is how it affects you, and this one changed his life forever, he'll be a marine forever, his rifle will be a part of him forever, and he didn't even get to shoot it.