'Jarhead': Scud studs in a dud

Years from now, historians may make little distinction between the Vietnam War and the Iraqi conflicts. If so, they will find evidence of such similarities and parallels in Jarhead, a new film about the 1991 Gulf War.

That may be accurate, but it makes for a moviegoing experience that is less than novel. "Every war is different, every war is the same," is how William Broyles Jr.'s screenplay puts it. True perhaps, but it is also the crux of the problem with Jarhead, a well-made case of deja vu for anyone who has been paying attention to war movies over the past 25 years.

Universal Pictures 'Jarhead' C+ The verdict: Mendes proves too well that all wars are alike with this unoriginal depiction of the Gulf conflict. Director: Sam Mendes Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Jamie Foxx, Lucas Black, Chris Cooper Run time: 115 minutes Release date: Nov. 4, 2005 Rating: R for pervasive language, some violent images and strong sexual content. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate 'Jarhead'   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Director Sam Mendes certainly delivers surreal images and chaotic action, but for the man who gave us a new look at the underbelly of suburbia (American Beauty) and humanized the life of a Depression-era assassin (The Road to Perdition), Jarhead represents a less involving and less original vision.

Anyone with cable television 14 years ago surely remembers what the Gulf War looked like — a series of glowing green missile arcs that eerily resembled a video game. But what about the men on the ground, offering superfluous infantry support from the brutally hot desert?

That is what Anthony Swofford's best-selling battlefield account — the source of Mendes' big-screen epic — attempted to describe. Like most war films, it is the story of young men, battered and brutalized by barking drill sergeants, away from home and trying to cope with and make sense of their military obligations. And because they saw so little combat action, it is the story of their battle with boredom and their urge to perform as trained — to shoot off some guns and kill someone. Anyone.

"Jarhead" is a nickname for a Marine, coined in recognition of the distinctive severe Corps haircut. As with most services, the Marines' basic training is built on individuality-crushing, which also handicaps the film, since the characters are drawn in broad strokes with few distinguishing traits and little background.

Foremost among them is Tony Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal, lean and mean, but still with those deer-caught-in-the-headlights eyes). After a sketchy introduction to his family life as explanation for why he would enlist, he is whisked off to Camp Pendleton and then on to the sands of the Middle East, narrating his disorientation at every opportunity. Even more of an enigma is his sniper team partner Troy (Peter Sarsgaard, Flightplan). They and their fellow enlistees are brow-beaten by Staff Sgt. Sykes (Jamie Foxx), a career Marine who believably insists that he loves his job — every bellowing, hazing moment of it.

Although Foxx brings some freshness to the role, it is almost a war-film cliche, a fact that Mendes all but acknowledges with allusions to Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. Perhaps to diffuse the inevitable comparisons, he also directly invokes Francis Coppola's superior insanity-of-war film, Apocalypse Now, with a scene where the new Marines sing along with the Ride of the Valkyries helicopter sequence as if it were The Rocky Horror Show.

Jarhead seems to take pains to not take a viewpoint on the Gulf conflict beyond war-is-heck. Nor does it take the opportunity to allude to our current Middle East escapade.

If the movie is not entirely satisfying, it is at least filled with memorable visuals, thanks largely to the bleached-out, white-hot cinematography by Roger Deakins.

Still, two hours after it begins, Jarhead has told us little new about this relatively recent battle against the forces of the aptly dubbed "Saddam Insane." And while its primary audience would seem to be those with an interest in war films, it is precisely its lack of combat that is the movie's most salient point.