felt that the film was "full of intensity with almost no real visceral impact", and called it "a minor movie about a minor war, and a film that feels, at the moment, remarkably irrelevant". Kenneth Turan in his review for the Los Angeles Times wrote: In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, "A master of the monotone, Mendes prompts his performers to hit a note and sustain it. Although Jarhead is more visually accomplished and less empty than American Beauty or Road to Perdition, it still feels oppressively hermetic". Nathaniel Fick, another author who is a Marine, gave the film a mixed review (and panned the book on which it is based) in Slate. He wrote, "Jarhead also presents wild scenes that probably could happen in combat units, but strips them of the context that might explain how they're more than sheer lunacy". James Meek, who reported from the battlefields of Iraq, wrote in The Guardian: "The key to a film about war is how it ends, and if the young man at the film's centre is lifted out of the battlefield uninjured and sane, if his family and home life before and after aren't prominent in the picture, the movie is diminished as a film which says something about war and becomes a simpler story of growing up, of jeopardy overcome". Controversy In a November 2005 New York Times article, David Carr noted that war veteran and writer Joel Turnipseed felt that parts of the film's plot had been taken from his 2002 book Baghdad Express: A Gulf War Memoir without his consent. Jarhead screenwriter William Broyles Jr. claimed that many similarities arise from the retelling of common Marine experiences. Accolades Sequels The film was followed by three direct-to-video sequels: Jarhead 2: Field of Fire (2014), Jarhead 3: The Siege (2016) and Jarhead: Law of Return (2019). Unlike the original, all three sequels are entirely fictional and have no connection to the original. References External links 2005 films 2005 biographical drama films 2000s war drama films American war drama films American biographical drama films Films about snipers Films based on non-fiction books Films produced by Douglas Wick Films produced by Lucy Fisher Films directed by Sam Mendes Films scored by Thomas Newman Films set in 1989 Films set in 1990 Films set in 1991 Films set in Kuwait Films set in the United States Films shot