Jarhead DVD Universal Studios Home Entertainment     Reviewed by Tony Buchsbaum	If George W. Bush weren't president, I'm not sure Jarhead would have been made. I say that because it's too riddled with Statement Moments to have been "just another war film." It's a film driven by politics -- and not those of the narrative's time when the senior Bush was running things. Rather, politically, the film feels quite contemporary: when junior has made such a mess of things. I'm not sure if Jarhead is satire, farce, or indictment. Maybe it's all three. What I do know is that the film tries real hard to make war both fascinating and repulsive at the same moment, as alluring as a train wreck, pointing its camera on the horror, futility, comedy, characters and occasionally stunning imagery of war. Starring Oscar nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as Anthony Swofford, Jarhead is based on Swofford's Desert Storm memoir of the same name. Swoff, as most everyone calls him, ups for duty and is shipped out quickly, securing a position as a sniper. The film's first section covers Swoff's induction, his trial by fire and his first inklings of the complete waste of time and effort that surround him. In deadpan voice-overs, Swoff tells us about the military-recommended ways soldiers are to handle pain -- the solutions are determined by the gravity of the problem -- and the different ways soldiers are supposed to spend their time to stave off boredom, using everything from books to philosophical conversations to what seem to be endless bouts of masturbation. Director Sam Mendes, who rose onto Hollywood's A List with American Beauty, have given Jarhead a stark look and a fast pace. The script by William Broyles Jr. is as quick-witted as it is completely unsurprising. Jarhead is anchored on three points. One scene depicts Christmas in the desert, and Swofford, by now over the mindfuck of war and well aware that snow and cold are a million miles away, dons nothing more than two Santa hats for the camp party. One hat rests on his head, the other is positioned somewhere south. He bumps and grinds his way through a couple of scenes and gets totally trashed. The scene is funny at first, then maybe a little shocking and ultimately terribly disheartening as we realize that Swofford's psyche, all but dead at this point, has come up with this almost M*A*S*H-inspired bit of comedy. The second scene is the emotional heart of the film. After endless months of practice on basic training cardboard cutouts and makeshift desert targets, Gyllenhaal and shooting partner Peter Sarsgaard finally get a ripe sniper assignment, only to have it snatched away at the last moment by a superior officer who calls fighter jets in to blow up the building where their target is working. This was their one chance to have a purpose in all this waste. Their one shot, so to speak, is snatched from them, their frustration with nowhere to go. The third point happens toward the end of the film, when the soldiers -- Gyllenhaal, Sarsgaard, staff sergeant Jamie Foxx and a few dozen others -- happen first upon the remnants of an attack. There are burned out cars, gruesomely crispy corpses and scorched earth. Next they come then upon fields of burning oil derricks, with massive plumes of flame licking the clouds and a rain of oil falling from the sky. Those bodies -- charred beyond recognition -- and the black rain combine to form an indelible picture of war. Swoff's sadness and disgust at the loss of human life, coupled with what might be a metaphor for God's dark tears. The black raindrops rest on the soldiers like sweat, which makes it look like they're working out their most malevolent thoughts. However you read the rain, it's horrifying. And it's as powerful an image about the psychological destruction of war as anything I have seen. Jarhead, while not a perfect film, seems to have been made to strip off the trappings of war to show us the reality. I don't know if this is how war really is or not, but I know this is as close as I ever want to get. Which is at least one thing I have in common with Mr. Bush. | March 2006   Tony Buchsbaum is the author of Total Eclipse and a contributing editor to January Magazine and Blue Coupe. He and his family live in Lawrenceville, New Jersey where he is hard at work on an exciting new chapter in his life.	... the film tries to make war both fascinating and repulsive at the same moment, as alluring as a train wreck, pointing its camera on the horror, futility, comedy, characters and occasionally stunning imagery of war.