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Jarhead review
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A Deep Study into Marines at War.

This is one of my favorite war movies, oddly enough, it had no war, but it had everything you see in a war movie except the action, instead, it was a deep study into characters and it was written by a former marine, a movie that cuts the conventional Hollywood bullshit and show you the real side of 'war'.

Directed by Sam Mendes, the guy who brings suburban family movies that either hit or miss, this movie is very surprising coming from the same guy, it's a story about the marines in 'gulf war' or the 'Persian Gulf War', in which after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and was building up to attack Saudi Arabia, a coalition forces from 34 nations led by the United States was formed against Iraq condemning it's invasion, so the U.S sends it's marines to the Iraqi Side of the Arabian Desert (the Desert between Iraq and Saudi Arabia) to protect the oil fields in case Saddam attack them, a 5 weeks in the desert in which you feel the marines frustration and craziness and it was one of the best character studies ever to see in a movie.

The movie starts with the marine corps training, a scene which pretty much looked like the drill instructor scene from 'full metal jacket', and it can never be as good as that seen from the Stanley Kubrick film, but i'd like to give this movie the benefit of the doubt, the reason is that we will always have the image of that movie in-mind, so every-time we see a cruel drill instructor yelling at the marines in the camp training, we would say that it's trying to duplicate 'full metal jacket', and it may not be true, because at the end of the day, this is a movie about marines, and it featured marines training so it can be a standard situation no more no less.

Jake Gyllenhaal in the leading role, playing as Anthony Swofford, a guy who feels like he made a mistake by enlisting in the marines and he want to get out of it as soon as possible, he embodies that character so well, it's one of his best performances ever, he brings the movie into actual reality, along side of him was Peter Sarsgaard playing as an ex-criminal who lied in his application and will get dismissed after going back home, and the overall performances were very good, Evan Jones play as weird freak, Jamie Foxx on the other hand was out of place, personally, i never liked him as an actor, but sometimes he brings a good performance, like in 'Django unchained', when he played as slave who didn't say much the entire movie, but here, he played as a tough Staff Sergeant, and he wasn't able to fulfill his role, i thought that he was really annoying, specially in the beginning at the training camp, but he got better as the movie continued.

This movie might sound like it's a war movie, but it's actually an anti-war movie, and that's what i liked about it, it was written by a former marine, and whose better to show you the marine corps in a war than a guy who lived it, because we've all seen war movies when they tried to sell us the idea that the marines or the army in general are fearless tough people, but at the end of the day, these people are humans with emotions, this movie doesn't shy away from anything, with Jake Gyllenhaal pissing himself when the bombing started, the whole 'wall of shame' of the girlfriends and/or wife's of the marines who dumped them, showing you screw ups and failures, degrading and humiliating soldiers who screwed up, freaky characters who loses their minds in the desert and starts messing with dead people, it's all very deep study into people at war and it's very unconventional and different from other movies, the movie mention masturbation numerous times, which might be kinda offensive to some people to see the marines represented that way, but it's all very real, many of wife's and girlfriends do dump their husband/boyfriend when they get sends to war, guys do masturbate to the photos of their girlfriends, girlfriends do send their sex tape to the boyfriends as a revenge, it's all real, and people might not like it.

The movie was visually stunning, it was beautiful, i actually had to pause few times just to look at the frames, specially the ones with the oil burring up in the night, that was one of the best visuals I've seen, and the music was fantastic, sound mixing and score were beautiful, the overall production was flawless.

The reason that this movie had no war, is that, the majority of 'Operation Desert Shield' was handled by the air force, the coalition forces used aerial and naval bombardment to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, there were very few ground battles, and the marines had nothing to do with it, they were on the Saudi side of the desert when the battle were inside the Iraqi borders, and because i know that, i already knew that there are going to be no war, but people who don't know that might find it frustrating, the entire build up was ended by nothing, but i think that's the point, it goes to show you the frustration the marines felt never having to fire a pullet the entire war, and it achieved it's point very well.

As i mentioned before, the movie brings realism never before seen in a war movie, it's even shows you how the marines live after they go back home, they either get a regular job or go back to whatever shitty life they had before, shows you how for some of them, the marine corps destroyed their lives, left them in an empty house surrounded by walls in which no-one even remember that 'they served their country', so after all, this movie is very politically motivated and i loved every second of it.



7/10
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Added by OsamaExKing
9 years ago on 17 October 2014 12:24

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kathy