October 27, 2005

I don't know if I'm the first to say it about Jarhead, but I am sure that I won't be the last…

Welcome to The Suck.

If you want to know what to expect from Jarhead, both of Sam Mendes earlier films signal the way. Mendes is a skilled filmmaker and actor's director, but he is also a filmmaker who seems shockingly unwilling to connect with deep emotion. He just won't do it. In American Beauty - though, of course he didn't write it - the movie opens with its main character telling you that he will be dead when the story is over, so you get to enjoy his life changing antics, but when he does die, it actually feels kind of like a happy ending for him. Road to Perdition is based on a graphic novel which is far more compelling than the film he's made, even with tremendous acting by Paul Newman, Tom Hanks, Jude Law and Daniel Craig. Tom Hanks took the blame from most critics when it was pointed out that this professional killer didn't seem very comfortable with killing people, avoiding it when he could. In addition, the hook of the novel is that the son is a priest when he grows up and narrates the story from the perspective of someone who gave themselves to God in the hope of making up for the sins of the father. Powerful stuff…and not in the movie.

Jarhead is the Seinfeld of the holiday movie season… a movie about nothing. As you can see in the trailer, there are moments of visual power and intensity. But the film is most certainly not political. It's not really a comedy. And it's not even particularly anti-war. It thinks, I guess, that it's a coming of age movie. But putting aside that the cast's age would make it a "coming of middle age" movie, for a movie that keeps most of its cards tightly held, a coming of age movie needs at least to offer some personal context.

As I start to write a little about story, I think I should offer that there will be no spoiler warning because, again, nothing happens. The only spoiler is, in fact, that nothing really happens because there is no tension either.

Jake Gyllenhaal's Swofford (he literally plays the author of the book, which adds nothing to the movie) joins the Marines because… uh… uh… he "got lost on the way to college." Clever line, it thinks. But what does it mean? Glib can be fun, but not when the entire movie hinges on some sort of depth to that moment. The movie assumes that we will assume that he is of greater intelligence and depth than others, but it won't give us any real reason to believe it. Maybe he is a disappointment to his family. Maybe he was pressured. Maybe he did it as a way to get college money and then the war unexpectedly came up. We don't know.

He goes to boot camp, where a mediocre, often word-for-word delivery of R Lee Ermey speeches from Full Metal Jacket take place… but not as well delivered. It is kind of brutal to be stuck with moments from another film being that iconic and, presumably, realistic. But you have to deal with it, not just do it anyway as though no one's gonna notice. You just can't say, "I'm too old for this shit," or "Here's Johnny," or "Do you know what they call a Big Mac in France?," without stepping on someone else's shiny shoes.

Another reality we have learned from the movies is that the boot camp instructor is not usually the guy who goes to the front lines with his men. Maybe this is the real-life fact in this story, written in the book. Jamie Foxx's senior office leads a group of specialists. But it makes you wonder.

This is all nothing compared to the complete lack of emotion in the film from this point on, outside of the subject of masturbation (act one's favorite topic), sitting around waiting and dealing with the weather (the second act), and waiting for something to happen endlessly (third act).

One of the big emotional things is Swofford's connection to his girlfriend, challenged through most of the film. But our relationship with her is as shallow as the guys in the tent with him. We see her in a photo and in a very brief shot of him having sex with her up against a wall. There are no particular relationship plans to be spoiled. We have no indication of any heavy connection with this girl for Swofford. Really, it's basic girl back home stuff. So it just isn't that important to the audience. We feel as though he could meet another girl just the same at the TGI Friday's next weekend.

But even worse is a sequence in which one soldier gets visual evidence that his wife is cheating. And no matter how he screams as an actor, we don't much care. And the visual evidence is part of the reason why. We watch this woman having sex with someone on a couch and slowly, he realizes that he and a whole group of fellow Marines are watching his wife cheat on him. The moment should stun. But how do you get the audience into it when the victim of occurrence is not a major character? Often, the best way is to turn the audience into happy voyeurs before turning the card and catching the audience in a guilty position. But here, after an hour of listening to masturbation talk, we see a woman on a couch with a full set of lingerie that shows no flesh from thigh to neck. The image doesn't play as an episode of Red Shoe Diaries, much less porno that a bunch of Marines would be clamoring to get an eyeful of. Similarly, it doesn't have any shock value for the audience. Universal had a picture this summer, The 40 Year Old Virgin, which has a tub masturbation scene with Elizabeth Banks that feels very dirty but has no nudity at all. I'm not demanding porno in the movie. But the audience needs to feel the shame that this man's brother Marines should feel when they realize they are witnessing the end of their brother's marriage. And we should also be even more shocked when some people just don't care and just want to watch the video again. The scene, like the movie, goes through all the paces of emotion… but it fails because it just won't get its hands dirty.

Though it may be unfair, Jarhead walks on the turf of so many other war movies - particularly post-Vietnam war movies - that it becomes almost impossible not to make comparisons. The music is used to emphasize what we are supposed to feel but, unlike Platoon, it fails miserably at coloring within the lines of the actual conflict, so the great soundtrack is all over the timeline. But the excuse that it is timeless is not taken advantage of by the storytelling. I already mentioned the opening scenes of boot camp compared to Full Metal Jacket, but Private Joker in FMJ is very similar to Swofford in this film… except that even as an observer, Joker has so much richer an emotional life. Joker's helmet, which says "Make Love, Not War" in itself has more to say about the man and about the absurdity of the situation than the entirety of Swofford's journey here. The musing on lovers back home or waiting to fight was done so elegantly in The Thin Red Line. Particularly relevant to this film was Sean Penn's ability to settle in wherever he is in that film. And even a documentary like Mike Tucker & Petra Epperstein's Gunner Palace - putting aside the pulse-racing scenes of dealing with Iraqis on the streets of Baghdad - in just the scenes of the soldiers in Uday Hussein's palace, goofing off, are intensely more compelling that what's been dramatized here at great expense, whether partying or hanging out, considering life at home.

Aside from suffering from comparison, the deep trouble with Jarhead is that it has virtually no drama, neither for the characters nor in driving elements in the story. Even the most dramatic "shocker" moments of the film have been so blown away by the real events of recent years. And the personal stories are barely there.

There is one moment in the film that I have never seen in a movie before… or in real life. It is such an extreme event that it strains credulity. I'm sure it has happened in real life sometime, but even though the movie stops for a moment to observe the depth of anxiety over it, it still seems way underplayed. More importantly, if it did happen, why doesn't it seem to have any impact on the other Marines? And how does it speak to the themes of the film? If it does, I don't know how… except to say, "You won't like being in the Marines."

One thing that really sticks out in Jarhead that is not addressed, though it may have been trying to make a point, is a complete lack of military discipline. Marines do whatever they think of, regardless of consequences, and then get petty penalties. I don't believe that stripping and cursing in front of a TV crew wouldn't lead to serious trouble. Sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction. But it should have been addressed if that was the case.

The acting is fine. Jamie Foxx is good, but not special. Gyllenhaal is not given much range to play. Peter Sarsgaard is wasted here and has a couple decent scenes, but nothing he can't do in his sleep. The nice surprises are Lucas Black and Dennis Haysbert, whose characters actually have focus. Chris Cooper is the kind of cameo that wasn't credited in The Thin Red Line.

The cinematography, which is an issue for many after the passing of Conrad Hall, who shot both of Mendes' other films, is fine, but the blown-out overlit look has also been overdone and the juxtaposition of it to the night sequences just doesn't matter. Roger Deakins is a great pro, but he doesn't keep his director from his worst instincts. And even the great Walter Murch, who cut the film, can't create emotional scenes that have never been shot.

About 90 minutes into the film, someone whispered to me, "When is the movie going to start?" Exactly. It never really did.

You can do a minimalist drama in which people wait, for Godot or war. But for all the noise and fire, you need to have something in the hole that grabs some part of the audience's soul. And search though I did, I found nothing there and nothing much worth exploring again. 'Tis a pity.

What Mr. Mendes might be great at is a Batman movie, where withholding emotion is a built in part of the character. Either that or a heavy drama about eunuchs. It may be The Suck, but Mendes just won't put his lips on the glass.

E-ME.