Jarhead - movie review

Simply put - fantastic. This is one of those movies that comes along every so often and really makes you think. This was a war movie, but its focus was on the internal struggle of a handful of soldiers in the first Gulf War, rather than the external struggle against Iraq. It truly was a well-developed character study with some of the better actors working today. Jamie Foxx was incredible, Jake Gyllenhaal worked well as the main character, Peter Sarsgaard (who we last saw in Flightplan) was well-cast as Gyllenhal's scope-man, and last but not lease, Dennis Haysbert (aka President Palmer aka Pedro Cerrano aka that dude from the Allstate commercials) was a complete bad-ass. The movie definitely played homage to previous war movies - taking the two-part story arc from the classic Full Metal Jacket (starting in boot camp, followed by being on the front lines) and even showing clips of Apocalypse Now while the soldiers sang along with one of the scenes. This was a well-directed, well-acted, well-written, stunningly beautiful (especially the oil fire scenes) film that I strongly recommend seeing. In fact, the best thing about the film is that it did not try to force a message or any politics down the viewer's throat, which is a nice change of pace from many other films of its kind.

5.5/6 beers