So once again it seems I’ve got to do the whole explaining thing about the unfathomable existence of the Jarhead franchise. To deliver the short version, the original Jarhead was a vehemently anti-war film that told the story of a bunch of soldiers trained up to kill and sent to Kuwait and Iraq to participate in Orperation Desert Storm – but the twist is that when they get there, there’s nothing for them to do and their hopes of serving their country soon turns sour as the boredom starts to pick them apart. That’s right; the entire point of Sam Mendes’ movie is that the killer instinct driven into these young men soon becomes harmful when it’s discovered that there’s no action for them to react to.
Fast forward a bit to 2014 and we’re now on the second sequel to Jarhead and both have shown a spectacular lack of understanding as to what their source material was trying to say. But with Jarhead 3: The Siege once again trying to swap out anti-war sentiment to pro-military flag waving, should I just try and put Mendes’ vision aside and enjoy the big bangs?
Evan Albright has been stationed at the American embassy of a seemingly quiet city in the Middle East and soon discovers that despite his eagerness to serve his country, there’s more chance that he’ll be brushing up on his video game skills than hand to hand combat or his marksmanship. In fact, after being shown around, meeting his fellow troops and doing such mundane tasks as helping the ambassador read to children for charity work, Albright feels like he’s made a terrible mistake.
Noticing his uncomfortable nature is hardass Gunnery Sergeant Pete Raines, who tries to school the new recruit concerning his expectations and a noticable lian wolf attitude to proceedings, however Albright simply just can’t let his guard down and after he believes he spots suspicious faces in the crowds outside the embassy, he goes over the heads of his superiors to report it.
This only succeeds in pissing everyone around him off and his punishment is demeaning as it is alarming as Raines stages a fake kidnapping to take some of the piss and vinegar out of the new guy. Of course, if anyone here has seen a direct to video, modern war movie before we all already know that Albright is actually bang on the money and the embassy really is on the verge of being attacked by a radical militant who had been thought to have been killed weeks earlier. Before you can say “13 Hours”, the embassy is under siege with bullets flying everywhere and everyone inside has to dig down to do their jobs, because not only do the marines have to protect the staff, the staff can’t leave until all sensitive documents and equipment has been burned, shredded or trashed. With waves of militants swaming the grounds, can Albright become a team player while the movie delivers a pointed boot to the genitals of the message of the original movie?
If I could break character a little to make something of a personal point; over that past year or so I’ve review a lot of direct to video sequels of military based franchises, so I freely admit that I’m getting burnt out thanks to a semi-regular diet of cheapjack sequels to Jarhead, Sniper, Behind Enemy Lines and The Marine as they’re all starting to blur into one another. But while Jarhead has thus far avoided casting any WWE wrestlers, it certainly doesn’t help that Dennis Haysbert shows up in this third installment who not only pops up frequently in the Sniper series, but also showed up in the first Jarhead. To make matters even more confusing, Haybert is apparently playing the same character (Major Lincoln) as he did in Sam Mendes’ film, which doesn’t make any thematic sense at all? Why am I spending so much time bringing up other franchises and the opportunistic filmography of the man who played President David Palmer in 24? Simple, because pondering these sorts of things prove to be far more entertaining that the actual plot of the movie which once again stands as some sort of weird recruiting video, rather than a film that has anything profound to say about warfare in general.
What’s so ironic is that if Jarhead 3 wasn’t trying to hard to affiliate itself with a franchise that shouldn’t really exist, there’s a chance that it might be a little better regarded as, like most of its cinema dodging peers, it’s a fairly slick affair that’s loaded with action. However, it also had the misfortune to share a plot and release year of Michael Bay’s far more spectacular 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers Of Benghazi, which proves to be a far more engrossing, expansive and (weirdly for Bay) ground look at such an event that tends to show The Siege off as something of a cheap looking pretender.
Elsewhere, we also find that the movie has cast feet flinging stealth action legend Scott Adkins, but made the monumental mistake of not having him be the focal point of the film. Instead, his constantly seething Gunnery Sergeant is more of a hard-nosed mentor as Charlie Webster’s vanilla hero takes centre stage to deliver a rudimentary character arc. Yep, from the complex stokes of Sam Mendes’ original, we’re again offered up yet another story that basically lays out a marine learning the hard way how to be a better soldier when the bullets start flying. Similarly, the movie seems barely interested in dealing with the usual politics that arise in these sort of things or altering any typical ethnic stereotypes, but that isn’t particularly surprising considering the unsubtle cash grab nature of the franchise.
To give the devil it’s due, those more familiar with playing COD than keeping up with actual events will probably find it a passable popcorn actioner and Director William Kaufman – he of last year’s Osiris and (surprise, surprise) The Marine 4 – does exactly what he’s hired to do: stage a large scale siege/firefight while keeping it within the established budgetary restrictions. However, while the movie keeps its basic gears greased and moving, you’ll struggle to care if any of the rather flat ensemble are in danger of catching a fateful bullet or decide to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. As a result, the Jarhead name whips up yet another shallow, empty adventure with nothing much to say other than “kill the bad guys”.
While technically passable, thanks to enough RPGs and explosions to carry it through with a less demanding audience, Jarhead 3 still suffers from trying to ride the coat tails of an infinitely smarter and better movie. Maybe if it had been released under its own steam under a different title, it might have been easier to take seriously, but as it stands, it’s still like trying to follow up Star Wars with Roger Corman’s Space Raiders.
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