All Critics (196)
|
Top Critics (41)
|
Fresh (126)
|
Rotten (77)
|
DVD (36)
Jarhead is utterly predictable (boys endure tough training; boys encounter another culture and are baffled), studded with first-rate performances.
This is a very strong film with really good performances.
What's so good about the movie is Gyllenhaal's refusal to show off; he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others and is content, for long stretches, to serve simply as a prism though which other young men can be observed.
Director Sam Mendes' third screen outing pretty well nails Swofford's tone, which was mordant without being disrespectful, and, in fact, is begrudgingly reverent of the Corps.
Jarhead makes its points less obviously than most war films, and with more brains than blood.
The best war movies -- and this one, despite its being overlong and repetitive, is among them -- hold that men fight (or in this case, are ready to fight) not for causes, but to survive and to help their comrades do the same.
Slick military faux-criticism
For some it's an anti-war message, for others it's just a non-biased portrait of a man who never went to war despite being in the military during war time.
Intelligent and bleak; for mature audiences only.
Sporadically entertaining, and ultimately pointless -- although that seems to be its agenda right from the start.
As a depressive riff on Generation X's first war...it's exceptionally well-crafted.
As usual, when the US makes war against the rest of the world, it's the artist who steps up to the plate to expose the lies and senseless tragedy, not the faint of heart or soul politicians and media.
What little statement the film makes revolves around the absurdity of these men, trained to shoot with ultimate precision, and never given the chance to fire off a round.
As time passes, waiting for orders becomes like waiting for Godot, an absurdist tragicomedy of frustration, madness and masculinity gone awry.
A series of disjointed, shocking, and often unintentionally-humorous vignettes designed to celebrate boy-boy camaraderie while fomenting anti-Arab sentiments in the name of God, mom, and Apple Pie.
The principal extra on that disc is a pair of full-length audio commentaries.
The first 20 minutes of have masterpiece written all over them, unfortunately, that fire peters out quite constantly until the film comes to a near flat lining ending.
As usual, when the US makes war against the rest of the world, it's the artist who steps up to the plate to expose the lies and senseless tragedy, not the faint of heart or soul politicians and media.
Jarhead is simultaneously audaciously original and so mired in the clichés it knowingly acknowledges, sends up and honours that it has little new to say.
Thanks to its poignancy and expert crafting, Jarhead could become a classic war drama -- one that speaks for a new era of soldier and worldliness.
More Critic Reviews
Top Critic
