Jarhead Critic Reviews
Metascore®:
Based upon 15 Critic ReviewsHighest Rated
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It is not often that a movie catches exactly what it was like to be this person in this place at this time, but Jarhead does.Read the full review
Jarhead is about how the experience of being in the military fundamentally changes an individual. In this case, the focus isn't about the madness of slaughter in the jungle, but the madness of inaction in the desert.Read the full review
Jarhead isn't overtly political, yet by evoking the almost surreal futility of men whose lust for victory through action is dashed, at every turn, by the tactics, terrain, and morality of the war they're in, it sets up a powerfully resonant echo of the one we're in today.Read the full review
What we're left with is solid if not exceptional, though it's good to see Mendes expanding as a filmmaker.Read the full review
A harsh and thoroughly unromantic examination of the scarring effects of war.Read the full review
Even when the script slips into sermonizing -- a Swoff voice-over informs us that we're all still "in the desert" -- Mendes keeps invading us with emotions. The jolt of Jarhead is undeniable, and it comes when you least expect it.Read the full review
Screenwriter William Broyles, Jr., a former Vietnam pilot and "Newsweek" editor, connects reasonably well with the material, but "American Beauty" director Sam Mendes has a tendency to smooth out the rough edges, and the film goes flat as month-old soda.Read the full review
All writers are entitled to tell the story of their own war, whether it's on the battlefield, in their head, or -- as is usually the case -- somewhere in between. Like it or not, Anthony Swofford did just that. Mendes, by contrast, tells the story of a Hollywood war, and it's simply not the news we can use.Read the full review
Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, all seen through the filter of previous war pics, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone.Read the full review
Jarhead refuses to engage in its own point of view toward events it depicts. So the film feels empty and tentative, uncertain of what if anything these events add up to.Read the full review
