Jarhead (DVD)

There are better war movies than Jarhead, but there aren't many that are as entertaining. Sam Mendes' third feature - based on Anthony Swofford's account of his time as a sniper during the first Gulf War - is a joyride of a film: it largely portrays the ugly and brutal side of a soldier's life but is fascinating and often thrilling to watch. Its tone and anti-establishment sense of humour make it a nephew of groundbreaking military films of the 70s such as MASH and Catch-22 which had comedy at their core, rather than the serious and often bitter works such as Coming Home or The Deer Hunter.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays Swoff, whose father and grandfather before him served their country, and who follows suit by joining up as soon as Iraq invades Kuwait in the middle of 1990. Swoff's unit - known as the Suck - contains the usual array of characters common to all military scenarios - the dorky one, the loud one, the Mexican etc, but more importantly the philosopher (Peter Sarsgaard) and the hard-as-nails Staff Sergeant (Jamie Foxx) who become Swoff's best friend and mentor respectively. Pranks and roughhouse jokes are the order of the day in the Suck - as soon as Swoff arrives he passes out when his comrades try to brand him with a red hot iron.

This is just the beginning of the fun. Swofford's narration is largely about the pointlessness of war and how men spend their time on the most trivial matters to pass the time. It also highlights the massive operation that was the first Gulf War - an incredible mobilization of troops that lasted months, for a war that was over before it had really started. And all the time Swoff puts up with the latest practical jokes while desperately wondering if his girlfriend has been faithful to him back at home.

The minutiae of military life provides a fascinating amount of detail which Mendes swoops on with glee, but it's at a deeper level that the film's flaws begin to emerge. Although it's entertaining to watch simply for the unlikely goings-on of this unit, its underlying message is harder to work out. Swofford - in a traditional and existential kind of way - realises that war is little more than a joke and that the only thing to do is laugh at it, but this comes across as too simplistic. As a result the audience may be left with something of a 'so what' factor


There are better war movies than Jarhead, but there aren't many that are as entertaining. Sam Mendes' third feature - based on Anthony Swofford's account of his time as a sniper during the first Gulf War - is a joyride of a film: it largely portrays the ugly and brutal side of a soldier's life but is fascinating and often thrilling to watch. Its tone and anti-establishment sense of humour make it a nephew of groundbreaking military films of the 70s such as MASH and Catch-22 which had comedy at their core, rather than the serious and often bitter works such as Coming Home or The Deer Hunter.

American audiences, well aware that the current conflict in Iraq shows no sign of stopping, may have found a lot of Jarhead too close to the bone for their liking, and any army cooperation during its making is unlikely. And although there is a sense of having seen much of it before in other films of the genre, it's still an accomplished feat and extremely well directed by Mendes, who looks to find the funniest or most outlandish heart of each scene before briskly moving on to the next.