IST Movie Review #3: Jarhead (Spoilers included)

Jarhead, the true story of Marine Anthony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), tells the story of a soldier coming to terms with the fact that technology has made it impossible to be a great warrior. This is a sad fact for the proud son of a Marine who's father cast a sizable shadow with his nasty war--Vietnam.

The film begins with a bit of an homage to the great Vietnam War film Full Metal Jacket, with an abusive DI ranting and raving at the green marines, territory director Sam Mendes is wise to quickly leave behind. Mendes knows that expectations about his film suffer from the same fatalism that permeates the elite snipers who make up the tight knit family around Swofford--Desert Storm could never live up to other American wars as Jarhead could never live up to the body of war films preceding it.

Lacking an epic battlefield struggle to chronicle, Jarhead dwells on a mythic archetype that has reached obsolescence. The War Hero is no more. In the most intense scene of the film, Swofford and his spotter Troy (Peter Sarsgaard) are robbed of thier chance at a kill when a higher ranking soldier steals their thunder and calls in an airstrike against their target. Troy, the soldier utterly alienated from his war, has an emotional breakdown as Swofford desperately tries to get him under control.

A dialectic emerges between Swofford--who lives on, scarred but functional--and Troy, who perishs in a freak car accident years after the brief unsatisfying war--a humiliating end for an already castrated warrior.

By the way something, read the book before you see the movie. Swofford is a standout writer. He's so good I feared he might have James Frey Syndrome. Eh, you gotta trust somebody sometime, and I trust Swofford. Hell of a book.

VIDEO: David Lamble interviews Anthony Swofford.