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Jarhead
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Universal Pictures Review written by and copyright: Andreas Petersen (30th December 2008). |
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The Film
 Ever since "Jarhead" came out in 2005, it has come up in film conversations pretty frequently among my friends. For the longest time, "Jarhead" has been set by me as the standard for a certain type of film. However, this isn’t because the movie is amazing, and also not because it is particularly horrible. "Jarhead," to me, is the quintessential “average” movie. Every time I see a movie, and it wasn’t great, but also wasn’t offensively horrible, and I can’t quite put my finger on why I wasn’t blown away, I tell people “Well, it’s sort of like Jarhead”. "Jarhead" is directed by Sam Mendes, tells the story of Anthony Swafford (Jake Gyllenhaal), the real life author of the book the film is based on. Swafford joins the Marines, goes through boot camp, makes a friend (Peter Sarsgaard), reports to a mean drill sergeant (Jamie Foxx), and eventually finds himself smack dab in the middle of first Gulf War. The majority of the film focuses on the activities of troops while not fighting. They play games, egg each other on, watch movies, and worry about their women back home. One of the main themes of "Jarhead" seems to be the banality of war. This was an interesting take on the war film, but in the end, may have ultimately led to why I feel the way I do about the film. The film is meant to portray a certain level of boredom in the troops, showing how pumped up a soldier can get for a war, and end up not ever discharging their weapon once. Director Sam Mendes and screenwriter William Broyles Jr. accomplish this feeling by boring the audience. The problem was, instead of feeling a transferred feeling of boredom via the characters, I myself, got pretty bored during the movie. In a way, I understand what was trying to be done with the film, but I felt like it just made the movie incapable of being entertaining. Like I said before though, the movie is far from worthless. While most of the film is pretty plainly directed, there are some instances of striking beauty, particularly one involving a brigade moving through the infamous Highway of Death. Also, the performances in the movie are far from terrible, but like the movie itself, I never found any performance that stood out as fantastic. I’ve seen Gyllenhaal act before, I know what he’s capable of, but I felt as though he was too droll in his performance here. Also, I felt as though Foxx was playing every mean-but-kind-of-nice drill sergeant I have ever seen in a movie already. In the end, I come back to where I began. "Jarhead" is an average movie. I never felt cheated after watching it, but I’m just not sure if I’ll ever be tempted to watching it again.
Video
"Jarhead" is presented in a 1080p 24/fps 2.35:1 widescreen transfer, which uses VC-1 compression, and I have to say, the movie looks amazing. I have found that more often than not, Blu-ray movies with excessively saturated scenes in the desert tend to have a ton of grain. I was happy to see that "Jarhead" has bypassed this typical flaw of Gulf War movies, and consistently looks great throughout. The film really doesn’t look like it was made 3 years ago, but instead looks more contemporary, as though it were made with a Blu-ray release in mind.
Audio
"Jarhead" is presented in an English DTS-HD Lossless Master Audio 5.1 track mix at 48kHz/16-bit, as well as Spanish and French DTS 5.1 tracks. The HD track here is rather stupendous, and worked amazingly well with my surround sound system. While the film itself doesn’t use typical war sounds to its advantage, it was in the more quiet scenes that the audio really began to shine. One scene in particular that stood out was the sniper training segment. Every time a sniper rifle is fired, the empty echo crashed around my room, as though it were a canyon in the Gulf. Optional subtitles are included in English, French and Spanish.
Extras
This Blu-ray release of "Jarhead" includes two audio commentary tracks, and a "My Scenes" bookmarks function. They are explained below: First up is a full-length audio commentary track from director Sam Mendes. In it, Mendes explains why he made certain choices concerning everything from themes to transitions. I really enjoyed listening to this track, as one can tell that Mendes is an passionate filmmaker and is very serious about his craft, but at the same time he doesn’t come off as pretentious or overbearing. This commentary track actually made me appreciate the movie a little more. A second audio commentary track is included, featuring screenwriter William Broyles Jr. and author Anthony Swofford. This commentary track deals more with Swofford’s real life experiences, and serves as a tribute to his fellow soldiers. When the two aren’t talking about the real life events, they seem to just repeat what is happening on screen. This track was a mixed bag, as half of it was interesting, and the other half seemed to be filler. The Blu-ray also comes with a "My Scenes" bookmarks function, in which the viewer can bookmark their favorite scenes of the movie, and jump to them in the future.
Overall
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