Review by Gary Tooze

Studio:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

English 5.1 DTS HD Master Audio. Dub: Spanish & French DTS 5.1

Subtitles:

English SDH, French,  Spanish and none

Extras:

• Commentary by Director Sam Mendes

• Commentary by Screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. and Author Anthony Swofford

• My Scenes: Create your own video montage

Synopsis:

Set during the Gulf War, the episodic tale follows Anthony Swofford (a.k.a. "Swoff"), a third- generation enlistee, from his sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he's sporting a sniper's rifle and a hundred-pound ruck sack on his back, while moving through Middle East deserts with no cover from the intolerable heat. As well, he advances with no protection from the Iraqi soldiers--and there's always a potential enemy sighting, just over the next horizon. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves on humor and camaraderie as they tread the blazing desert fields in a country they don't understand, against an enemy they can't see, for a cause they don't fully fathom.

***

Academy Award-winner Jamie Foxx and Jake Gyllenhaal star in this critically acclaimed, brilliantly unconventional war story from Oscar-winning director Sam Mendes. Jarhead (the self-imposed moniker of the Marines) follows Swoff (Gyllenhaal) from a sobering stint in boot camp to active duty, where he sports a sniper rifle through Middle East deserts that provide no cover from the heat or Iraqi soldiers. Swoff and his fellow Marines sustain themselves with sardonic humanity and wicked comedy on blazing desert fields in a country they don’t understand against an enemy they can’t see for a cause they don’t fully grasp.

***

Jarhead moved me as possibly the best film about the Gulf War that I have seen to date. The Marine indoctrination certainly evokes Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, although perhaps with a harder and more realistic edge. Roger Deakins cinematography of the Kuwaiti desert, with understated contrasts that overpower the entire film's composition, reflects a immensely surreal and inhuman environment - almost a totally different planet. Like many great films it is the story of one man - his world, values, laws and perceptions turned upside down. But Anthony Swofford isn't simply one man - he is all men who find themselves thrust onto the frontlines of a War - with Gyllenhaal juggling the multiple personal eccentricities that undoubtedly evolve in such circumstances. Jarhead's unspoken pauses and visuals create a chiaroscuro experience in their depth and impact. Without sexist undertones I'll say beyond this being a film that everyone should watch - it is definitely a film that all men should positively see at some point in their lives. 

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

Audio:
The Blu-ray offers a DTS-HD Master 5.1. The film has abundant effects, explosions, gunfire exported with impressive depth. Thomas Newman (In the Bedroom, American Beauty, Shawshank Redemption, Erin Brockovich) does the score and it sounds very crisp in the lossless. As does all the additional music in the film from Nirvana and Public Enemy to Kanye West and Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now). Very clean and pleasing in lossless. There are optional subtitles on Universal's region FREE Blu-ray disc.

Supplements:
Two commentaries – one by the director and the other by the writers – offer a lot to understanding the lengths the filmmakers went to - in being as faithful as they could to the book. Universal opted not to include the extra features found on disc two of the DVD: "The Jarhead Diaries", Sempre Fi: Life After the Corps, and Background. Which seems an unnecessary exclusion considering the Blu-ray disc size available to them.