Jarhead (Welcome to the Suck)

If you can picture the kids from “Stand By Me” or “The Sandlot” joining the Marines, you can imagine Jarhead. But it’s more than just a “coming of age” movie set in a Marine barracks, that’s just the surface of this movie. Think Albert Camus with a crew cut and “Semper Fi” tattooed on his arm.

Jarhead is a camouflaged existentialist with a bad attitude. The main character, Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal), while sitting on the toilet and reading “The Stranger,” meets his new sergeant. The sergeant (played by Jamie Foxx) offers him the opportunity to join an elite sniper squad. In essence, if Swofford kills, he will have the meaning he desperately wants in his life. By the end of the film you realize, nothing is really black or white about Swofford or joining the Marines, or fighting in a war. But unlike reading “The Stranger,” you don’t feel like slitting your wrist at the end of the movie. It’s a Hollywood flick after all.

I have to tell you about my most favorite scene in the movie. This when the platoon, (with a look of almost religious ecstasy) watches “Apocalypse Now” and hums along with Wagner’s Ride of the Valkyries. At one level, you the audience, remember the power of that scene from Apocalypse Now, while at another level your watching Jarheads with an equally memorable scene, and at another level you realize that the two scenes are creating a symbiotic relationship.

So should you go watch Jarhead? If you’re expecting Platoon or even Rambo, you’ll be disappointed. There are limited action scenes in the movie and Swof never gets to kill anyone. With that said, I think its worth the 9 bucks.

Favorite Line:

Drill Instructor (yelling): What the hell are you doing in the Marines?

Swofford: I got lost on my way to college!