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For starters, there's the impressive cast he deploys. Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson, two who certainly know the big budget drill, lend a note of authenticity as old Vietnam War buddies who have the misfortunate opportunity to once again traverse a mutual crossroad in their lives. Just like last time, morality in wartime is the issue: the old duty and honour versus human decency bugaboo.
Let's face it. It's the only issue in court martial films. Not too many folks would be interested in a trial about a sailor who gets prosecuted for wearing his dress whites past Labour Day. And that's okay. Because this duty vs. conscience thing remains an area that certainly needs work if we're to proceed with our democratic experiment. Remember, it's only in those futuristic totalitarian societies where the soldiers unquestioningly obey folks like Ming the Merciless and his ilk. Which doesn't quite explain why so many civilians passively accepted HMOs in this country. But that's another story and I digress, which is often the case when a film fails to inspire.
In this case, Marine Colonel Terry Childers (Jackson) is brought up on charges after his harrowing and heroic evacuation of the American ambassador to Yemen (Ben Kingsley) in hostile territory. Assaulted by the violent crowd and ducking sniper bullets, he loses three Marines. He orders his men to open fire. In a matter of seconds, eighty-three Arab protesters lie dead outside the embassy; over a hundred are wounded. Confoundedly, no guns are found on their persons.
Childers contends he had no choice. They fired first. And the security cameras would prove his claim. That is, if the suddenly missing tape could be found. National Security advisor William Sokal (Bruce Greenwood) says he doesn't know where it is. And anyway, he's sure Childers is guilty of murder. Government skulduggery, anyone?
Riding to the rescue, on more of a figurative donkey than a big white steed, is Tommy Lee Jones as Colonel Hayes Hodges, the proverbial old warrior who has been jockeying a desk lo these twenty some odd years since his salad days in Vietnam. Now a military lawyer who owes the accused a debt emanating from an incident in Vietnam that neither is particularly proud of, he is reluctant to take the case. Oh, it's not that he thinks his pal wasn't justified in his actions. But rather, Colonel Hodges, residing in the shadow of his illustrious father, General Lawrence Hodges (Philip Baker Hall), doesn't feature himself a very good lawyer. In other words, both lead characters are in need of redemption. So what's really on trial here is man's self image and civility, or lack thereof. But again, isn't it always?
We've long suspected that the "All is fair in love and war" adage is a bit fast and loose with human lives. And how about that "Kill or be killed" credo? How would you like to share a cab with whatever wise sage it was who first coined that one? Of course we hope that someday someone will get to the gist of this ethical conundrum. How do we protect ourselves without blowing up everyone else in the process? But in the meantime, Rules of Engagement merely iterates this specific stumbling block in our evolution.
It's all pressed uniforms, shiny medals and deeply committed salutes. Nary a cliché is safe from overuse. And thus one suspects that, despite its much-advertised ruminations to the contrary, Mr. Friedkin's movie is not very cerebral, let alone anti-war. Fact is, Rules of Engagement likes playing soldier. And you don't have to be Genghis Khan to enjoy its hormonal proffering and macho machinations on that level.
Beyond that, things don't get very deep or thought provoking. Despite the fine actors in tow, including Guy Pearce as the hired gun prosecutor who informs he isn't a hired gun prosecutor, little more than lip service is paid to characterisation. Jackson's dedicated lifer fears that he'll "just die without the uniform." Great. But why? And we haven't a clue as to why the military lawyer's marriage failed, though we do have the privilege of meeting his dovish, break-your-Marine-heart son (Nicky Katt). Plus the courtroom scenes hold few surprises. Unwilling to risk colouring outside the lines, the soldier saga can't flourish beyond its very structured and therefore limited writing.
Yet Mr. Friedkin is a master of nuances, apparently even when there is little substance to embellish or shade. There is a classy look to his movie, like a medium-priced box of chocolates done up in a handsome gift package. The stylish camerawork, specifically the juxtaposing facial close-ups at trial time, provides an instructive theatric all but forgotten in modern fare. You get the gnawing feeling that all the veteran filmmaker would have needed to make a good movie was a decent script. And that a very good script might have returned a great film. But as it stands, for all its spit and polish, Rules of Engagement lacks creative ammo.
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