Are They Proud?
I recently watched A Few Good Men. Because directors get possessory credit, some would call it "Rob Reiner's A Few Good Men," but really it's Aaron Sorkin's A Few Good Men. He wrote the play--it made him--and the screenplay--which hews pretty closely to his stage piece. There are a lot of good things in the movie, but without the particular script and writer, it'd be just another courtroom drama.
It's an entertaining film, with one of Tom Cruise's best roles, and a number of decent supporting parts, but its climax, as famous as it is ("You can't handle the truth!"), is a bit silly. Like The Caine Mutiny (and the play The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, both based on Herman Wouk's novel), the lead defense lawyer plans to get the key witness to go nuts on the stand and admit things which destroy the prosecution's case. It may make for an exciting story, but is a disastrous strategy for any lawyer. If you're counting on witnesses making statements against their own interest, maybe you should reconsider a career in law.
PS The case in A Few Good Men is about an incident at Guantanamo Bay. When the play debuted, few had heard of it. Now the place sounds very different to an audience's ears.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:18 AM
7 Comments:
Help me . . .
Help me . . .
SWMBCg, etc.
Between Tom trying way too hard and Nicholson eating the scenery, this movie is almost destroyed by the energy sucking black hole that is Demi Moore and almost saved by the brilliant underplaying of Kevin Bacon. This movie also benefits from being one of the first Aaron Sorkin scripts out of the gate, so at the time we didn't realize that every character he writes sounds exactly the same. Hey, it worked for Neil Simon...
You lost me at "one of Tom Cruise's best roles"
There ain't no such animal
There was a time when Cruise was taken seriously as an actor. He even got an Oscar nomination. I think his off-stage life has destroyed his reputation unfairly.
I think the movie did a pretty good job of setting up that the TOm Cruise character agreed with you that hoping to get a witness to implode on the stand is a desperate tactic, but that it was the only tactic he had left at that point. The defense had followed numerous leads into dead ends.
The play tries to raise the stakes by claiming that Cruise would be court-martialed if he insults Nicholson on the stand. Nevertheless, hoping Nicholson will admit he ordered the code red, rather than using a bunch of other facts to imply it, is a tactic beyond desperate. (By the way, Roger Ebert didn't like the plot because he felt they gave away what Cruise's strategy would be, when in fact, as you note, these scenes were crucial to show how much was at stake.)
This movie is my "guilty pleasure" -- I love it, but am totally embarrassed about it.
I even like Demi Moore in it, even though I detest her as an actress. I think it's because she's so annoying, but in AFGM at least she's supposed to be annoying.
"... the brilliant underplaying of Kevin Bacon." I agree. Kiefer Sutherland is equally brilliant as an actor in this. (Although Dark City was his greatest role, IMO.)
The defendants are idiots, however. Lance Corporal Dawson sits there sullenly refusing to help his own lawyer. I could never figure out his motives. Yes, he believes in the Marines and in honor. But surely he has figured out that Lt. Kendrick (at least) is handing him over as a fall guy. And yet he doesn't even mention the fact that he was ordered to do the Code Red until fairly late in the game. You'd think that if your defense was "I was following orders" you would tell your lawyer about these orders right away, instead of waiting several days....
Post a Comment
<< Home