Basket.

The corridors of power were empty this week, with everyone fit to fight out at FATEP, pitting inferior skills and training against none other than Singapore's feared elite commandos. But the scary part is, sometimes, we won.

Propaganda is often not outright lies. Or skilful propaganda, that is. It is usually more a mixture of half-truths backed with statistics. As in, "There are lies, damned lies and statistics." In that case then, made-in-Singapore propaganda is anything but skilful, because all I see whenever I pass an advertisment promoting the Singapore Armed Forces, I see nothing but blatant falsehoods. 3G Army? That's a lie. A fucking big lie. It's not even a little true like most of them are. I wonder who the hell believes it. Certainly, I should hope that no NSF does.

It was in this mindset that I caught Jarhead yesterday with Jason, and it's no surprise that I really did like it. Any NSF worth his salt probably would, really - it's the good old cynical take on the (many, many) idiosyncracies, frustrations and (for lack of a better word) plain cock-ups of military life.

I rarely single out actors to accord high praise to - made an exception for Der Untergang (Downfall) and I shall make an exception here too, to say that Jake Gyllenhaal is brilliant in this movie. His facial expressions in particular were superb, especially the look I have come to know as "classic resignation". The very look that was on everyone's faces on my very own Enlistment Day. Yet its effects are even more potent in the movie because the US Army, unlike our own, is technically an all-volunteer force. Yet his character is forced to serve - forced by circumstances. "All you want is in, and all I want is out" - that's life for you indeed. Leading a life you never wanted to. Tell me about it.

But maybe I should begin going into the movie itself. It tells, in a nutshell, the story of a US Marine scout sniper unit, from training all the way to Operation Desert Storm and after. Intriguingly, not a single enemy soldier is seen, except very fleetingly towards the end. Yet the director somehow manages to convey that familiar sense of hopelessness, cynicism, anger and resignation that can be found in all armed conflicts - or rather, in the men fighting them. "Welcome to the Suck" - yes, welcome indeed. Only it begins long before they go to war. It began the moment they made the decision to wear green. And they face it exactly the right way - with weary cynicism. "Fuck politics. We're here. All the rest is bullshit."

Indeed, who has not heard of the idea that politicians talk while young men die? The old sending the young off to their deaths in war. It pervades this movie, because if you look at it, why did the US bother putting half a million troops into the Middle East then? For the oil, of course. If there was no oil there, do you think they would have bothered? Do you think they would have used half their army to defend a few thousand square miles of godforsaken desert? I was nodding in agreement with this theme right there in the theatre.

Something else that pervades the movie is Vietnam. Or the spectre of Vietnam, which has never really stopped haunting the American psyche. Fifty thousand of America's bright young men died there after all, shot down my Asiatics in black pyjamas, impaled on jungle traps, blown to red shreds by explosives, suicide, "fragging" (look it up)... along with virtual anarchy at home as the National Guard shoots students protesting the draft (Kent State). It was a terrible experience for the world superpower, and the memories simply will not go away. Near the end a Vietnam veteran boards the bus which the returning soldiers are on - and you can see: different wars, same men. Superb.

Then, of course, there is plenty of screen time for all the, as I mentioned above, idiosyncracies, frustrations and just plain cock-ups of military life. Sent to a foreign land to serve an obscure political purpose, the Marines find nothing to do for months. Basically they are waiting to rush. Sound familiar? It should. While they wait, they train - and then the reporters come. What are they ordered to do? Put on a show. In local terms, wayang. They are told what they can say and what they cannot (Singapore parallel: vetting questions at "no-holds-barred" feedback sessions), ordered to put on a football game in chemical suits for the cameras (Singapore parallel - display tommorrow, let's go kiwi DGU tyres) and are duly punished in a very creative manner when their performance is found to be unsatisfactory (Singapore parallel: yes, very often, that is how it works down here too). It just all shows how bloody shitty the life of a soldier is. How, when the top talks, the bottom suffers. "I want you to play football in these suits" vs "I need five men to carry (extremely heavy thing) to (extremely far place). You, you, you, you and you." Girlfriends and wives deserting their soldier partners vs Singaporean couples breaking up when the guy has to enter NS. American army vs Singaporean. Volunteer vs Conscript. All the same dog's life. Not that, of course, the director neglects to give us alternative perspectives - which to me always shows whether someone knows his stuff. "I love this job. I thank God for every fucking day he gives me in the Corps, oorah" - from the movie's main career soldier.

In any case, after all that shit, war finally comes - and the ultimate cock-up. American aircraft bombing their own troops. Friendly fire is anything but, of course. Deaths occur - yet one more shitty aspect of life as a soldier in a war zone. Following this, they come across a "Highway of Death" in miniature, complete with charred corpses. Yes, war is hell, and that is skilfully done here, without too much violence - unlike other war movies that seem to see the need to bash it into the viewer with a bludgeon.

Finally, after much suffering, it seems that their chance for glory is finally here. The shot is lined up perfectly and the finger is on the trigger... and it is time for the ultimate "top talks, bottom suffers", as an officer bursts in and orders an airstrike on the target instead. Chance for glory gone, emotion to face that with? That's right, weary resignation.

And so the war ends without them ever firing a shot. They proceed to put that right in the grotesquely over-the-top celebration at the end. To pour out all their cynicism, frustrations, resignation. It must have felt really good.

Lest you think all that there was to the movie was cynicism, the ending is touching and poignant. I won't spoil it, though. Watch it yourselves to find out, because this is one movie that is worth the price.

Best quote: "Whatever else he may do with his life - build a house, love a woman, change his son's diaper - he will always be a jarhead. And all the jarheads killing and dying, they will always be me. We are still in the desert."

Yes... the age-old dilemma of soldiers returning from war.

Go watch it. Now.