Jarhead 3: The Siege, the latest installment in the popular Marine warfare film series, takes the action away from the battlefield, and into a more intimate setting where tensions run high. Marine Corporal Evan Albright (Charlie Weber, How to Get Away with Murder) thinks he’s in for an uneventful tour of duty when he finds himself assigned to a US Embassy in the Middle East. While there are daily protesters outside the gate to watch over, for the most part, everyone seems to be praising U.S. Ambassador Cahill’s ability to maintain positive and peaceful relations with the locals. So Albright finds his days filled with menial tasks like cleaning windows, delivering files, and holding a book for the ambassador as reads to a group of local children for a promotional photo op. Albright is a bit bored and upset with his assigned duties—he joined the Marines to prove himself and to be the best, not do useless stuff like this!

One day, while observing the daily protesters from the roof of the embassy, Albright notices some strange behavior outside the embassy gates. He sees someone pretending to be a cameraman, and believes that it be a terrorist on the watch list named Khaled, and that he is planning an attack on the embassy. However, instead of going through proper channels, Albright takes his concerns directly to Ambassador Cahill. This not only causes trust issues with his commanding officer Gunny Raines (Scott Adkins, The Brothers Grimsby) and the rest of the squad, but it also causes the ambassador to not take the threat seriously.

Once Albright’s fears prove to be true, it’s already to late—the embassy is minimally-staffed, and the closest military forces are deployed over 200 miles away. Now this small team of soldiers must find a way to hold off the terrorist forces that are have taken over the building long enough for Major Lincoln (Dennis Haysbert, 24, The Unit) and his reinforcements to arrive, and then find a way for them and the embassy staff to safely make it to the rescue point. In the meantime, they must also retrieve the sensitive data stored in the embassy safe before it falls into the enemy hands, but getting to the safe means heading out into the open, through the enemy forces.
 

Jarhead 3: The Siege is an entertaining watch, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the previous installment of this franchise. (All of the Jarhead films are stand-alone and do not intersect character- or plot-wise.) I don’t think viewers tend to expect much out of a direct-to-video sequel, and it’s true that these aren’t usually the most original or groundbreaking of films. However, I usually enjoy this type of siege plot line where a small group finds themselves trapped, surrounded and must overcome impossible odds to survive and overcome their attackers, and I wasn’t disappointed with this one. The film slowly builds to the embassy attack (even throwing in a red herring or two first), and then is non-stop action until the end. The movie has some excellent action sequences and shoot-outs, and some really tense moments.

Jarhead 3 does a decent job of giving the main terrorist a motivation for his attack on the embassy, instead of just a terrorist being a terrorist. However, it doesn’t set out to reinvent the genre, and instead sticks with a lot of familiar aspects and tropes found in any modern warfare film (not that this is necessarily a bad thing). As Albright arrives at the embassy, he is welcomed by a wide-eyed fresh young recruit who gives him (and us) the lay of the land and introduces Albright to his fellow soldiers. They cover the gamut of the different types of soldiers including the funny guy/cook, and the racist who doesn’t trust the locals and refers to them as “towelheads” (how did he even get deployed at a foreign embassy with an attitude like that?!). The film takes place at the embassy, and not the battlefield, and so that means we also get a variety of civilian characters like the funny blogger Blake (Dante Basco, The Legend of Korra) who’s filming everything on his video camera for the embassy web site, and the sexy-but-tough digital security director Olivia Winston (Sasha Jackson, One Tree Hill)—and of course there’s lots of sexual tension and barbs traded between her and Albright. Dennis Haysbert, who’s arguably the biggest name in the cast, is featured prominently on the Blu-ray cover, but only has more of a guest starring appearance.

This Blu-ray release contains both Unrated and Rated cuts of the film. However, the runtime of both is exactly the same, so I’m not really sure what the difference is. For the purposes of this review I stuck with the Unrated version. I didn’t notice anything that was extremely gruesome or excessive language. However, if you do prefer one version or the other, I found that the iTunes Digital Copy redeemed to the Unrated cut, while the Ultraviolet Vudu redeemed to the Rated version.

This Blu-ray features a really nice picture that successfully captures all of the detail of the fast-moving, action-packed battle that erupts over the course of the film. Both the interior and exterior battle shots look excellent. The audio track was equally-impressive, utilizing all of the various audio channels to shake the room during explosions, or make you feel like you are right there in the middle of the action with gunfire coming from all around you. While the technical presentation of the film is fantastic, the bonus material was lacking. All that is included on the discs is 7-minutes of cast interviews. It would have been nice if there had also been some behind-the-scenes footage, or an audio commentary, but seeing as this is a second direct-to-video sequel, it was at least nice to at least get something extra.

What’s Included:
Film: (1:29:06 Rated & Unrated)

Blu-ray:
• 1080p / Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1, Spanish DTS Surround 5.1, French DTS Surround 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

DVD:

• 480p / Anamorphic Widescreen 2.35:1
• Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1, French Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish, French

Digital HD (for redemption deadline, see NBCUcodes.com)

• HD Digital copy redeemable via UltraViolet (Universal, Vudu, Flixster or CinemaNow) OR iTunes

Extras:

• Making Jarhead 3: The Siege (7:02)
  Go behind-the-scenes with the cast as they talk about their characters and what drew them to the film. The actors also discuss the military, and what it was like shooting guns and working with one another and director William Kaufman. Includes film clips and interviews with stars Charlie Weber (“Albright”), Scott Adkins (“Gunny Raines”), Dennis Haysbert (“Major Lincoln”), Erik Valdez (“Lopez”), Sasha Jackson (“Olivia”), Hadrian Howard (“Khaled”), Dante Basco (“Blake”) and Stephen Hogan (“Ambassador Cahill”).

Final Thoughts:

Overall, I quite enjoyed this third installment of the Jarhead franchise, and it kept my interest throughout. I liked how this film took more of a castle siege/Die Hard style approach to telling a Marine story instead of the usual sniper in the forest or streets type of battle. The Blu-ray’s technical presentation is excellent, but the disc is lacking in bonus features. While this film doesn’t reinvent the genre, it is a solid, entertaining action flick that’s worth checking out.