Samuel Fuller dismissed
Full Metal Jacket as "just another fucking recruiting film." He felt the first half, the sadistic psychic crumpling of the warriors-to-be, would perversely activate its audience's latent testosterone/
death-instinct. He'd likely feel the same way about
Jarhead, which rips off this sequence. Another relevant auteur quote is François Truffaut's observation: that there can be no such thing as an anti-war film because films make war look exciting. That is, the very fabric of the medium, an audiovisual spectacle, glorifies violence. Commenting on soldiers' ironic reception of famous anti-war films, like
Platoon or
Full Metal Jacket, Mendes' adaptation may pretend it's aware of the limits Truffaut pointed out & Fuller anticipated, but its self-consciousness doesn't help it succeed as an anti-war film. As better critics have said:
Jarhead is hackneyed, lacquered, hermetic Oscar bait.
