JARHEAD (2005). Based on the best-selling 2003 memoir by Anthony Swofford, Sam Mendes's film is the story of a 20-year-old Marine sniper (Jake Gyllenhaal), his passage through basic training and his initiation into combat in the first Gulf War. It's the premise for every war film ever made, the difference being that in Jarhead nothing happens. True, 100,000 Iraqis get incinerated, Kuwait is liberated, the oil fields are secured, and the stage is set for the rise of Osama bin Laden. And as the film goes on, Swofford receives a Dear John from his girlfriend and Mendes amps up his agony with a Nirvana song, a dream sequence, a Christmas party in which Swofford wears nothing but a pair of Santa caps, and finally a near-homicidal freakout. But whereas Swofford's funny, poetic prose ignited his meandering, anticlimactic narrative, Mendes struggles to find his own voice. When its most dynamic moment is a shot of Marines cheering at a screening of Apocalypse Now, you know a film is in trouble. (115m)

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