Jarhead.

In the second chapter [Anthony] Swofford writes, "There is talk that many Vietnam films are antiwar, that the message is war is inhumane and look what happens when you train young American men to fight and kill, they turn their fighting and killing everywhere, they ignore their targets and desecrate the entire country.... But actually, Vietnam films are all pro-war, no matter what the supposed message, what Kubrick or Coppola or Stone intended." He goes on to argue that civilians see these movies as moral statements - and that military men see them as pornography. "It doesn't matter how many Mr and Mrs Johnsons are antiwar - the actual killers who know how to use the weapons are not."

As for Rosenbaum's take on the film, "I suspect the warmongers lured in by the trailer will walk out disappointed and the pacifists will come away confused.... Jarhead the movie can serve just about any agenda today - and tomorrow."

"[N]either my book nor the film are anti-war. You know, they're about men with rifles, not about the guys in suits who make the decisions," Swofford tells the Stranger's Andrew Wright, whose review begins, "Director Sam Mendes is perhaps the most talented filmmaker who has yet to make a fully satisfying movie."

"It would've played equally well whether the United States had triumphed conclusively in Iraq, or, as happened, became mired in a bloody, protracted insurgency," writes Godfrey Cheshire in the Independent Weekly. "When I say Jarhead plays well, I mean as an involving, sharply crafted entertainment, not as the more incisive, challenging - and yes, political - film that might have been made on the same subject."

For the NYT's AO Scott, "It is a movie that walks up to some of the most urgent and painful issues of our present circumstance, clears its throat loudly and, with occasional flourishes of impressive rhetoric, says nothing."

More from Sudhir Muralidhar in the American Prospect, David Edelstein at Slate, Stephanie Zacharek at Salon, Kenneth Turan in the Los Angeles Times, Jim Tudor at Twitch and James Rocchi at Cinematical.

Posted by dwhudson at November 4, 2005 11:05 AM