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Avg. Critic Score: 58 out of 100 Mixed or average reviews Metascore® based on all critic reviews
Information for Parents:
17 not for kids
Read Common Sense Media review

Critic scores range from 0 to 100, with higher scores indicating more favorable reviews.

  • 88
    Chicago Sun-Times | Roger Ebert

    It is not often that a movie catches exactly what it was like to be this person in this place at this time, but Jarhead does. Read full review

  • 83
    Entertainment Weekly | Owen Gleiberman

    Jarhead isn't overtly political, yet by evoking the almost surreal futility of men whose lust for victory through action is dashed, at every turn, by the tactics, terrain, and morality of the war they're in, it sets up a powerfully resonant echo of the one we're in today. Read full review

  • 75
    San Francisco Chronicle | Mick LaSalle

    A harsh and thoroughly unromantic examination of the scarring effects of war. Read full review

  • 75
    Rolling Stone | Peter Travers

    Even when the script slips into sermonizing -- a Swoff voice-over informs us that we're all still "in the desert" -- Mendes keeps invading us with emotions. The jolt of Jarhead is undeniable, and it comes when you least expect it. Read full review

  • 75
    USA Today | Mike Clark

    What we're left with is solid if not exceptional, though it's good to see Mendes expanding as a filmmaker. Read full review

  • 60
    Washington Post | Stephen Hunter

    What's so good about the movie is Gyllenhaal's refusal to show off; he doesn't seem jealous of the camera's attention when it goes to others and is content, for long stretches, to serve simply as a prism though which other young men can be observed. Read full review

  • 60
    Variety | Todd McCarthy

    Part absurdist drama, part personal observational commentary and part hormonal explosion, all seen through the filter of previous war pics, Sam Mendes' third feature has numerous arresting moments but never achieves a confident, consistent or sufficiently audacious tone. Read full review

  • 60
    The Hollywood Reporter | Kirk Honeycutt

    Jarhead refuses to engage in its own point of view toward events it depicts. So the film feels empty and tentative, uncertain of what if anything these events add up to. Read full review

  • 50
    The New York Times | Dana Stevens

    Mr. Swofford's book has earned a place alongside the classics of military literature, but Mr. Mendes's film is more like a footnote - a minor movie about a minor war, and a film that feels, at the moment, remarkably irrelevant. Read full review

  • 50
    Los Angeles Times | Kenneth Turan

    As much as we intellectually admire Jarhead, it's a cold film that only sporadically makes the kind of emotional connection it's after. Read full review

View more reviews for Jarhead on Metacritic

Information for Parents
Common Sense Media says not for kids Intelligent and bleak; for mature audiences only.
What Parents Need to Know Parents need to know that this movie isn't appropriate for kids. It includes frequent scenes of violence, including shooting (at targets and people), hazing rituals, fights, explosions, and grueling training exercises. The film shows frequent images of carcasses (burned and broken along the Gulf war's infamous Highway of Death). Characters curse relentlessly, smoke cigarettes, drink, and do drugs. The troops also engage in frank sex talk (including slang for genitals and masturbation) and gestures; the film includes a brief glimpse at the protagonist's parents in a hotel bed, and scenes from a homemade porn movie (the doggy-style sex act is explicit, without penetration).
  • Families can talk about the conventional reasons for war, the ways that young men posture for one another in order to prove their "masculine" identities, and defining "enemies" by their differences. How does Tony's experience in the Saudi desert not meet his expectations -- of glory, mission, and camaraderie? How is Tony, as a precise, ground-based sniper, shown to be outmoded by overwhelming air-war technologies?
The good stuff
  • message true0 Positive messages: Troops are cynical, wartime violence is expected but harrowing.
What to watch for
  • violence false5 Violence: More focused on effects of violence than violent acts; explicit images of burned corpses.
  • sex false5 Sex: Repeated sexual allusions and language; a couple of brief sex scenes; sexy photos from girls back home; troops fret over cheating girlfriends.
  • language false5 Language: Extreme cursing (100s of f-words, slang for genitals, abusive slang); some racial and sexual orientation slang.
  • consumerism false0 Consumerism: Not an issue
  • drugsalcoholtobacco false3 Drinking, drugs and smoking: Cigarette-smoking, drinking, pot-smoking.
An independent nonprofit dedicated to providing families the information they need to help kids thrive in a world of media and technology. © Common Sense Media Inc. 2010. All rights reserved.

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