"Jarhead"

“Welcome to the Suck!”

Jarhead is the latest from British wunderkind director, Sam Mendes. And, like his previous movies, he bends the genre to suit his needs, rather than let the status quo constrain his direction.

Based on the novel of the same name, and delving into the lives of US Marines during the first Iraq War, Jarhead follows the trials and tribulations of Golf Company. In particular, Anthony "Swoff" Swofford, played by Hollywood's latest rising star, the unpronounceable Jake Gyllenhaal. Teamed up with Peter Sarsgaard, who plays Swoff's buddy Troy, we follow Golf Company as they go through their Scout Sniper training, and then on to deployment – and subsequent descent into boredom and monotony – in Saudi Arabia.

The training part of the film is reminiscent of Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, with Swoff fulfilling the role of Private Joker. However, despite the similarities, it is far from a blatant copy. To pursue this analogy, one could say that Jarhead was an amalgamation of Full Metal Jacket and Mendes' Oscar-drenched debut, American Beauty.

The Marines are not at all sanitised for the screen adaptation. There is a lot of talk about masturbation (one of their only past-times while in the Suck), fears of cheating girlfriends back home leads to jealousy and despair, the monotony leads to a number of the characters becoming a little stir-crazy - at one point, Swoff asks Fergus (another new guy, and the nerd of the squad) to shoot him, turning the tables from seconds before. It is this ugliness of the characters coming through that makes this movie so memorable – it would have been so easy to create a clean-cut, button-down squad of patriotic heroes.

The acting throughout is superb, with star turns from both Gyllenhaal and Sarsgaard (who, in my opinion, is well suited to become the next John Malkovich), as well as excellent turns from newly Oscar-minted Jamie Foxx (Staff Sergeant Sykes) and the ever-memorable Chris Cooper (Lt.Col. Kazinski).

As Sam Mendes says himself, this is not your average war movie. Indeed, it bears little resemblance to previous movies in the genre, with very little combat - Swoff complains towards the end that he didn't get to discharge his rifle once. Another of his complaints is about the continual use of music from the Vietnam era, saying they should get their own soundtrack. The original music is written by Thomas Newman, whose original score is amazing, and the non-original material is well placed to suit the mood and character of the scenes.

The pace of the script manages to portray the atmosphere in their desert camp extremely well, and coupled with the soundtrack, the cinema was filled with delighted whoops as the male audience got revved up. Impeccably shot throughout, Jarhead is full of stunning visuals and set-pieces: the burning Kuwaiti oilfields are particularly striking in composition and colour, creating possibly one of the most beautiful shot in cinematic history.

By turns funny, crazy, bizarre, sad, frightening and often thought-provoking, the movie is well written and definitely deserves our full attention. I would be very surprised if this movie doesn't win at least one Oscar.