| "RULES OF
ENGAGEMENT" |
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What’s
it about? |
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| What’s it about? We are in the jungles of Vietnam, thrust into a firefight vicious enough to scare the pants off any raw recruit. Leading these boys is Colonel Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), already a veteran of guerrilla warfare. He barely escapes the swampy battleground with his life intact, and foregoing the rifle, opts for the life of a Marine lawyer. He's no Clarence Darrow, and perhaps a disappointment to his famous General father who hoped for a warrior in his own image. Now retired, Hayes is enticed from a favourite fly-fishing stream by buddy Colonel Terry Childers (Samuel L Jackson), who happened to be caught in the same firefight all those years before - and more importantly, saved his life. Terry is still in the Marines, the commander of an elite evacuation squad. They are called to rescue the American Ambassador (Ben Kingsley) from a nasty situation in Yemen, but in the process all hell breaks loose and Childers orders the deaths of a large number of civilian Yemeni lives. He is court martialled and calls on Hodges to defend his life and his honour. As he says, "I don't want some Starbucks drinker who's never seem combat". The truth is a casualty as well, with the National Security Advisor bent on a politically acceptable verdict that will exonerate the State Department's policy. Doing his dirty work is Major Mark Biggs (Australia's Guy Pearce), a gung-ho legal counsel who intends to obliterate the defence. The plot sets up an interesting issue in military law. It persuasively shows us the dilemma faced by soldiers - what is unacceptable in civilian law may be not only legal, but perhaps a matter of duty, in the theatre of war. The movie established an interesting paradox - Childers, the by-the-book Marine who is charged as a mass murderer. Is he, or is he a victim of an unworkable and corrupt system? The movie would have done better to avoid too much of the political entanglement and concentrate on the ethical dilemmas raised by the intersection of military law and the actuality of warfare. In a similar vein, too much is made of the villainous National Security Advisor - I didn't particularly care whether he got his comeuppance, but I certainly wanted to know what happened to Childers. The National Security Advisor seems to be pretty stupid - are we to believe he is for real? Military law consists of the statutes and regulations governing the military and its operations. Military law in part includes the jurisdiction exercised by courts-martial, the focus of the deliberations that take place during the movie. These laws apply only to military personnel. Some examples of military crimes you will not find in the civilian courts are mutiny, insubordination, neglect of duty, unbecoming conduct, and (as the movie depicts) a sometimes very different view of murder. These laws apply both in times of war and peace, but of course the interpretation of some crimes (e.g. murder) will be different in the course of battle. In civilian law, "homicide" is the killing of a human being - whether it is also "murder" (or perhaps manslaughter) depends on how it is characterised by the courts. For example, it may be lawful to kill a person in self defence, or a person may die when death was not intended (manslaughter), but to murder there must be an intention to kill or do very serious harm that does not attract these or other defences. The movie points out that in a battle zone the same rules do not apply - whether an intended killing is legal or not depends partly on the "rules of engagement", the rules that govern the conduct of war. In other words, in some situations it is legal to kill on the battlefield. Tommy Lee Jones tells us he is "a shot-up Marine and a weak lawyer". We never believe it for a moment. Beginning with his scintillating performance in the TV movie "The Executioner's Song", Jones has built an impressive repertoire that includes "The Fugitive", "Coal Miner's Daughter" (excellent movie; excellent performance); Oliver Stone's "JFK" (another interesting performance) and the villainous terrorist in "Under Siege" (they should have watched out for the cook!). You may also have seen him in the more recent "Space Cowboys" with Clint Eastwood. Samuel L Jackson's performance is a long way from his virtuoso turn as a hit-man in "Pulp Fiction" (1994). But his range is the hallmark of his career: Remember his computer nerd in "Jurassic Park", or the crack-head brother in Spike Lee's Jungle Fever (1991), or the aggrieved father in Grisham's "A Time To Kill" (one of the few redeeming features of an otherwise terrible movie)? And for all our sci-fi friends, we can't forget the Jedi Master Mace Windu in the Star Wars prequel "The Phantom Menace". And soon to video his starring role in the reprised "Shaft". Ben Kigsley made an astounding entry into the movies as Gandhi in the biopic of the same name. The son of Indian and British parents, he won the 1982 Oscar for that performance. We have seen him as gangster Meyer Lansky in "Bugsy", a Holocaust survivor in "Schindler's List", and in more recent years in a number of lesser roles (what was he doing in the B-grade sci-fi "Species"?) Director William Friedkin attained instant fame for "The French Connection", winning Oscars for Best Picture and Best Actor for Gene Hackman. He followed this with "The Exorcist", a huge money-spinner and one of the great horror films (recently re-released in an anniversary edition). He never again achieved this level of success, with duds like "Cruising", "Blue Chips" and "Jade". His best effort has probably been the remake of the great legal thriller "Twelve Angry Men" for American television (but available here on video). This is the classic story of the redeemed hero (see our review of "The Verdict" for a similar theme). Guess lawyers are a good target for this type of story, given the opportunities for moral (or immoral) decision making that so often accompany controversial court cases. In fact morality is at the core of this movie: should the National Security Advisor take the expedient route that will also condemn a man to prison; should Hayes take a brief he doesn't want to help a man who once saved his life; how far does duty extend; what is the price a military commander should pay to save his men; to what does a State Department Ambassador owe his allegiance - his country or an oath to tell the truth? Despite a screenplay that is at times plodding, and some curious plot points, Director Friedkin manages to sustain the suspense, and it is hard not to care about the outcome of Childer's case. This may not be worth the price of a cinema ticket, but as a video to accompany a Sunday night pizza it does just fine. If you liked "The General's Daughter" or "Courage Under Fire" you will want to see this one. Make mine a capricciosa (with plenty of anchovies). By Geoffrey Winn Read this: The legal information contained above is intended to be general information about the law. It is not a substitute for legal and other professional advice. Lawscape Communications P/L does not accept responsibility for loss to any person, who either acts or does not act because of this information. |
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