A Few Good Men

“You can’t handle the truth!” RELEASED IN 1992 and directed by Rob Reiner, "A Few Good Men” is a military drama about a smart-axx young Navy Lawyer (Tom Cruise) who’s never seen a courtroom because he lazily arranges plea bargains. Perhaps this is why he’s assigned to defending two young Marines stationed at Guantanamo Bay who are accused of murdering a fellow Marine. They maintain that they were ordered to enact a “Code Red,” which took an unforeseen turn. Demi Moore and Kevin Pollak co-star as the lawyer’s partners while Kevin Bacon heads the prosecution and Jack Nicholson plays the arrogant commanding officer of Guantanamo. J.T. Walsh is on hand as the Colonel’s weak subordinate. The movie does a good job of depicting the honor code of hardcore Marines, particularly in the sequence where Lance Cpl. Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) refuses to confess to something he didn’t do in order to get a minor sentence. The characters are well written and casted, e.g. Kaffee (Cruise) and his penchant for baseball. The story is dialog-driven and maintains your attention without action/thrills. Nicholson is commanding and intimidating as the pompous colonel. Kaffee discovers his talent as a courtroom lawyer and realizes that the only way to take him down is to use his egotism against him. Other than the cringe-inducing “A Ten Hut” scene at the end, this is a gripping drama. THE FILM RUNS 2 hours, 18 minutes and was shot entirely in Southern Cal (Point Mugu, Crystal Cove, etc.) and Washington DC. WRITERS: Aaron Sorkin (play) and Aaron Sorkin (screenplay). GRADE: B+

I think this my favourite outing for Tom Cruise. He is the cocky young navy lawyer "Kaffee", who usually plea-bargains and as yet has never seen the inside of a courtroom. Surprisingly, he is drafted in to investigate the death of a young soldier at Guantanamo Bay. Two marines have been arrested for his murder, but they claim that they were ordered to administer a "Code Red" - a fairly brutal form of discipline used on their fellow soldiers deemed to have broken their code of honour. Teamed up with his pal "Sam" (Kevin Pollak) and with the more by-the-book "Galloway" (Demi Moore) the three face a subtle, but definite, hostility from the commanding officer "Jessep" (Jack Nicholson) and his enforcer "Kendrick" (Kiefer Sutherland). Soon their search uncovers evidence that not only was this attack authorised but that the instructions might have come from the top. Cruise is at his most natural here; his character comes across as arrogant and selfish, but also quite likeable and engaging - and he plays ball with Moore and a slightly over-played Nicholson really well too. The courtroom drama elements are kept tight and intense - thanks to a stronger than usual effort from Kevin Bacon ("Ross") and though I thought the ending rather flew in the face of the whole point of the narrative, it is still a well structured and delivered evaluation of trust and of the nature of human behaviour when faced with abusive authority figures. Rob Reiner resists any temptation to introduce any sloppy romance into film, and though there are the odd distracting sub-plots here and there, for the most part this stays on track as a strong and enjoyable thriller.