Jarhead 3: The Siege

Winston Groom wrote a sequel to his bestselling book Forrest Gump, called Gump & Co., but I doubt that will ever get made into a movie. However, Anthony Swofford has never written a sequel to Jarhead, and that was made into a movie with Jake Gyllenhaal in 2004, but there have been two straight-to-video sequels.

Alonso del Arte said in his review, “My memory of the first Jarhead movie is rather fuzzy. If I recall correctly, it covers all of Swofford’s enlistment in the Marine Corps, as well as can be done in two hours, and he did not re-enlist. There was plenty of combat readiness in that movie but no combat.”

Arte continued, “The biggest thing that sticks out in my mind about that first movie is the protagonist drinking out of a clear plastic bottle. Makes for a poetic image, but I hope in real life Marines are still using the drab green canteens. So I am not alone in being surprised about these two sequels seeming to be nonstop action.”

Universal Studios had the thought that Swofford does not own anything on the word “jarhead.” Arte said, “Therefore, they can make as many Jarhead movies as they like, though I do hope they give Swofford some kind of fee, however ambivalent he might feel about it.”

“Jarhead 3: The Siege,” released in video in 2016, stars Charlie Weber as Corporal Albright, a young Marine whose tour of duty becomes completely different from what he thought. That could be the only connection this has to the first movie.

To make sure good no one thinks this sequel will have more talk than action, the screenwriters made sure to begin with a short prologue with a voice-over where Albright says he doesn’t know anything as bullets are being fired.

The movie then flashbacks to Albright’s arrival at “the Kingdom,” one of the Arab counties, we don’t need to think about which one. Maybe the screenwriters were trying to prevent complaints.

They probably thought a lot of American has some recognition with Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan. Picking a Middle Eastern country besides those could still get complaints, so it’s safer for the writers to not specify which country it is. No one can say “They don’t have those in Qatar” or “We don’t do that in Yemen.”

Despite some people are convinced that this movie is definitely taking place in Saudi Arabia, a monarchy where the king has a lot of real power. Arte admitted, “Not that I’d do well in a Jeopardy! Middle Eastern countries category, but I’m pretty sure Jordan is also a monarchy. So I’m not going to insist that “the Kingdom” refers or does not refer to a specific real country.”

Now Albright is assigned to the embassy detail at the United States embassy in the Kingdom, where his main job looks like to act as a human lectern in blue clothing for Ambassador Cahill, played by Stephen Hogan, to read children’s books to the local children.

It’s the job other embassy Marines looks like they have done without complaining before Albright was enlisted, but it motivates the new man to go rogue in a training exercise. The scene is that ambassador has been kidnapped by some terrorist group or another.

Arte said, “Albright charges ahead and rescues the pretend-ambassador, but fails to notice a pretend-terrorist in the shadows, who can then pretend-kill the entire unit. Sometimes the most important Marine is the one at the rear. It’s a lesson I think Albright has forgotten by the end of the movie.”

In another situation of unthankful initiative, Albright identifies real terrorist Khaled al-Asiri, played by Howard Hadrian, casing the compound, and takes this information straight to the ambassador. Albright is not taken seriously because intelligence is sure that al-Asiri died in a recent drone strike.

Trouble is, al-Asiri did somehow survive the drone strike, but didn’t have his cellphone with him at the time. Arte noted, “Unlike JAG, Jarhead 3 can’t send Trisha Yearwood to analyze drone strike debris to identify human remains and make sure the intended target was in the building.”

Also, al-Asiri is looking to get his cellphone back, which for some reason is in a safe at the embassy but hasn’t yet been uploaded to CIA computers (yeah, there are some details in the story that doesn’t really make sense, other than to put the main character in more dangerous situations).

Arte noted, “Pretty soon, the embassy is under siege, bullets are flying everywhere and Kingdomians on both sides of the conflict are having simplistic theological discussions while holding guns.”

The ambassador and the terrorist’s brother are in the embassy’s safe room, but Albright and computer tech Olivia Winston, played by Sasha Jackson, must take bullets and go to a separate building in the embassy compound to retrieve the terrorist’s phone and upload the important information it contains (Arte said, “I guess terrorists don’t have ways to tell their accomplices to make information obsolete”).

“The is just like Benghazi!” the embassy’s goofy media intern Blake, played by the voice of Zuko from “Avatar: The Last Airbender,” Dante Basco, exclaims at one point. No, it’s not. Arte noted, “John Kerry is Secretary of State and the Republicans don’t look like they're interested in politicizing embassy deaths during his tenure.”

One of the Marines tells Albright that a Marine dying in the line of duty is an act of bravery, a civilian dying is a national tragedy. Also, Benghazi was a consulate, not an embassy, and Ambassador Stevens was supposed to be there only for a short period.

Dennis Haysbert is wasted as Marine Major Lincoln, the MARSOC commander who doesn’t get to do much besides tell Albright to hold things together until he can get there with his MARSOC unit.

Arte noted, ““Jarhead 3 is 13 Hours with less class and more Marines,” declares the review at the War is Boring blog. That reviewer rightly takes issue with how foreign aid is depicted in Jarhead 3. In the movie, foreign aid is literally given under the table, and seems more like protection payments to the local mob.”

It doesn’t look like anything learns anything from the whole war experience. Albright gets promoted to Staff Sergeant and becomes the Marine embassy detail’s new NCOIC (the trigger-happy guy died during the war, and it looks like there isn’t supposed to be even one Marine officer in the table of organization), while Agent Winston continues to make under-the-table payments to locals.

Dennis Haysbert is on the DVD box and promotional materials for the movie, despite his role being very small. Arte said, “I guess it’s just to give this direct-to-DVD production a small sheen of Oscar credibility (Haysbert has been nominated for a Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards).”

Marines want to see themselves in the movies more. Arte said, “In Operation Hollywood, David Robb mentions that the Marine Corps floated the idea of making Forrest Gump a Marine in exchange for less government interference on the screenplay. I guess it is mainly on that level that the Jarhead movie franchise is of interest to me.”

The third installment, as already mentioned, went straight-to-DVD in 2016. Arte advised, “If you happen to see it at your local library, I would recommend checking it out. But I wouldn’t recommend actively searching for it. And if I happen to come across Jarhead 2, I will review that here as well.”

However, I feel that you should avoid this one because this franchise just keeps sinking into disaster with every installment. This one is no exception because it feels like they just want to make money off of a good movie. Just don’t watch this one at all.

Sadly, they made one more attempt at a sequel. If you want to know how that one is, just wait until next week when we finally wrap up “Jarhead Month.”