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# Uncomfortably numb: ‘Jarhead’ relates tour in Gulf all too well
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/uncomfortably-numb-jarhead-relates-tour-in-gulf-all-too-well/
- Published: 2005-11-04T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T08:07:08.000Z
- Author: Dan Dunn
- Tags: Entertainment, Santa Monica, #archive-import

In “Jarhead,” a stylish but somewhat erratic conflation of sex and violence based on the best-selling memoir of same name by Gulf War veteran Anthony Swofford, director Sam Mendes (“American Beauty,” “The Road to Perdition”) and screenwriter William Broyles, Jr. (“Apollo 13”) adeptly illustrate, as numerous movies of this ilk have previously done, how wars shape the lives of the impressionable young men who fight them. The catch here is that the Holden Caulfield-esque Swofford (Jake Gyllenhaal) and his pumped-up fellow marines (Peter Sarsgaard and Lucas Black among them), are dispatched to Kuwait with the promise of ground combat that never materializes. So they wait and they sweat and they masturbate, alternately fantasizing about the women they left behind and that prized first kill. As air strikes wipe out the Iraqis with remarkable efficiency, it becomes apparent that the ground campaign will amount to nothing but a big tease with no hope for release. This doesn’t sit well at all with the frenzied soldiers, 20-year-old trained killers rendered here as the brutish precursors to the Abu Ghraib malefactors.

Stuck in a bleached-out-looking desert bivouac under the always watchful eye of star-spangled Staff Sergeant Sykes (Jamie Foxx in an effectively understated turn), a combination of unfulfilled bloodlust, extreme heat, doubts about their mission, and a shared loathing of women give rise to internal conflicts that basic training didn’t prepare them for. Though a number of meaningful themes are explored within, there are some glitches in “Jarhead” as well. Foremost among them are distracting fluctuations in tone that seem to be a direct result of Mendes’ curious decision to avoid addressing the politics relevant to the Gulf War and the unpopular sequel playing out in the same theater at this very moment. As for the sustained tedium that bedevils Swoff and his mates, well, to the detriment of his movie, Mendes all too effectively relates the numbness of the experience to his audience. (Rated R. Running time: 123 minutes)

![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/55/9f/559f9abc-8372-4a2e-8c2d-27386da4e363/content/images/2026/10/110405-16_01.jpg)

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 4, 2005.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/110405.pdf?ref=smdp.com)