Jarhead

Reviewed by:
Pete Hammond

Jarhead is unlike any war movie you've ever seen. The entire film is devoted to a bunch of guys with combatus interruptus—dudes who drive around in the desert for months, just waiting to shoot their load. As a result, it's a gripping, deeply personal, often bitingly funny view of life on the front lines where the battle is actually put on the back burner. (If this were a baseball picture, it would be about the bullpen.) Creating a timeless masterwork that is one of this year’s can’t-miss movies, British director Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Road To Perdition) challenges our very view of what combat is and shows a side of it rarely, if ever, seen in American cinema. It’s based on the memoirs of Anthony Swofford, a marine caught up in Desert Storm—but instead of the fight, Jarhead chooses to focus on the fighter. Forgoing politics, the flick tells the story from the point-of-view of the poor grunt whose only taste of war comes from watching movies like Apocalypse Now in the barracks. It may be the most political apolitical film ever made. Leading a brilliant cast, Jake Gyllenhaal as Swofford, Peter Sarsgaard, and Jamie Foxx are simply superb—and so is Jarhead.

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