Jarhead (2005) * * *

Directed by:  Sam Mendes

Starring:  Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Chris Cooper, Jamie Foxx, Dennis Haysbert

Jarhead is a war movie that follows Marine recruit Tony Swofford (Gyllenhaal) through the hell of basic training only to find him serving in a "war" that does not require him to use any of that training.    He is an expert sniper who never has the chance to fire his rifle at the enemy during the brief military exercise that was Operation Desert Storm.    "Four days, four hours, one minute.    That was my war," he narrates regretfully.     He arrived about a decade too early to be American Sniper.

I realized at the end of Jarhead that there was little payoff, but the movie isn't about a payoff.  It documents the mounting frustration of a Marine who is trained to kill and then is forced to wait on the sidelines for a war that was over before he knew what hit him.    Is this a bad thing?    To me, it wouldn't be, but for Tony it was.  

The dawn of Tony's military career wasn't promising.    He is screamed at by a drill instructor who sounds as if he studied and memorized Sgt. Hartman from Full Metal Jacket.     Then, he is hazed and branded by more veteran Marines including Troy (Sarsgaard), who would later become his best friend.    After serving time in sick bay, he falls under the tutelage of Staff Sgt. Sykes (Foxx), a career Marine who has not modeled his mannerisms after Sgt. Hartman.    But, Sykes is tough, assertive, and somewhat practical under the circumstances.    Tony soon falls in line and becomes a machine who can't wait to practice his skills on live targets.

It is Tony's misfortune to be deployed to Saudi Arabia during Iraq's occupation of Kuwait in late 1990.    He was part of Operation Desert Shield, which was a fancy name for soldiers standing around awaiting an eventual conflict.    Tony and his fellow Marines are stationary for months, trying in vain to relieve their daily boredom and avoid heatstroke.    When war finally does break out, the Marines find most of the battles involve air strikes on key targets with little to no ground battles.     One mission involves watching over oil fields that have been set on fire by Iraqis.    For Tony, his experience is one of mounting frustration and bottle-up aggression.    When Tony and Troy finally get their chance to use their sniping skills, they are ordered to stand down because the killing may blow the opportunity for an impending airstrike.     Troy is nearly court-martialed after his frustration boils over.    "Let him take the shot!," he screams to no avail.     In Tony and Troy's minds, why train them to be snipers only to never utilize their skills?

The focus of Jarhead is to depict the Marines' slow descent into madness caused by inaction.     They release their frustration with frequent parties and bouts of drinking.     Tony's long-distance relationship with his girlfriend hangs by a thread.    He learns of a potential rival through letters and there is little he can do to stop it.    Tony's time in Iraq is one giant exercise in futility.    He begins to regret not going to college instead. 

Men like Tony signed up for the Marines for reasons they can't even fully understand.    "They were the first to get me to sign a contract," he tells a television journalist.     He learns a skill and becomes an expert at it, but what a bummer to not be able to brag to the world that he killed someone.     For someone like Tony, the military was meant to serve as an ego trip.    He instead has four months of desert and little else.

Jarhead is unlike most military-themed movies I have seen because it does not end with a battle or extended gunplay.    It was refreshing.    I would like it if boxing movies did not always end with a big fight also.     The movie is geared towards seeing the bureaucracy of the military at work and men like Tony and Troy as simply tiny cogs in a very large machine.     They served their country, but in reality, they did not receive the opportunity to serve their egos.     This may be a blessing in disguise.    Most war movies are either patriotic propaganda or statements that "War is hell".    I have not seen a movie before in which was war is boring.