RULES OF ENGAGEMENT RATING: 6.5 /10 --> So-so
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Listen...I'm just about as sick of these Army/Navy/Air Force/Marine/lawyer movies as you are, but for some strange reason (note: THE GENERAL'S DAUGHTER (4/10) grossed over $100Million last year), Hollywood keeps churning them out by the truckload. This one slaps Tommy Lee Jones in as your rough-around-the-edges lawyer (see any previous Lee Jones movie for similar feel) and Sam Jackson as the man accused of a crime for which he claims to be innocent (see any previous Jackson movie for similar feel). Put 'em all together and you've got a recipe for disaster, right? Well, it wasn't so bad... : )
PLOT: A highly decorated Marine and his troops are sent into Yemen with orders to oversee an apparently peaceful demonstration outside the U.S. Embassy. When Marines start dropping like flies, the Colonel orders his troops to fire into the crowd of demonstrators, slaying many an innocent victim. It isn't long before the entire world is up in arms about the incident and demanding justice. At this point, the U.S. government puts the Colonel on trial for murder and the rest, as they say, is...well, a court case.
CRITIQUE: An okay movie submitting nothing unique to the genre, sprinkled in some decent drama, involving points of view, solid telegraphed performances from its leads and an ending which surprisingly had me paying attention. Don't get me wrong, you won't catch me running around trying to tell the world about this film, but if you're into this kind of movie, like the actors, and enjoy watching films which don't really offer any visible right or wrongs, this might just be the trip for you. It's really more of a "video movie" than anything else. In fact, despite being intrigued by everything which led up to the ending, I felt kind of blah about the whole thing afterwards. Not exactly sure why I felt that way, but I've deduced it down to the fact that the film really didn't cover any fresh ground or the thing about the extra salsa on my nachos.
Either way, the film does deliver a couple of riveting action sequences, with the whole "fire at the demonstrators" scene topping that cake, a decent pace, which doesn't bog itself down with too much legal mumbo-jumbo and an interesting plot, in that it never really crucifies one person as the proverbial "bad guy", thereby leaving the audience with the opportunity to form their own opinions of Jackson's dilemma. Granted, Anne Archer looks like a mess, Ben Kingsley is barely in the film and Guy Pearce does an incredibly annoying/convincing Brooklyn accent, but aside from the staple Jackson "screaming aloud" scenes, the gist of the film was quite convincing. All in all, you won't find the word "original" in this review (doh!), but if you're looking for a decent bi-polar story, a couple of good action scenes, a generally compelling courtroom case and one goofy sequence featuring Jackson/Jones duking it out as two old has-beens, than it might be just be worth checking out for yourself. For me...it was an okay movie. That's it. That's all. Next!
Little Known Facts about this film and its stars:
Tommy Lee Jones has never taken an acting class in his life and likes to
play polo.
Sam Jackson is also well-known for having played a lot of small roles in big
movies, earlier on his career. He played Eddie Murphy's "uncle" at the
beginning of his concert movie, RAW, was the "hold-up man" in Murphy's
COMING TO AMERICA, the "black guy" in Al Pacino's SEA OF LOVE, and "Stacks
Edwards" in Scorsese's GOODFELLAS.
Incidentally, despite the fact that this film presents us with final caption
cards with the fates of all its principal members, the film itself is not
based on actual facts by any means. Personally, I don't appreciate this type
of thing, find it sort of misleading and all, but there you have it...now
you know.
According to fellow online critic, James Berardinelli, former Secretary of
the U.S. Navy, James Webb, the man who is credited for having developed this
story, apparently asked that his name be removed from this film after a few
scenes in the final cut betrayed his original vision. Only after a few
changes were made, did Mr. Webb decide to rescind his request for
Review Date: April 5, 2000 Director: William Friedkin Writer: Stephen Gaghan Producers: Scott Rudin and Richard D. Zanuck Actors: Samuel L. Jackson as Colonel Terry Childers Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Hayes Hodges Genre: Drama Year of Release: 2000 ----------------------------------- JoBlo's Movie Emporium http://www.joblo.com/ ----------------------------------- (c) 2000 Berge Garabedian
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