Movie Review: 'A Few Good Men'

“A Few Good Men” (1992)

Directed by Rob Reiner

Written by Aaron Sorkin, based on his stage play

Starring: Tom Cruise, Demi Moore, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollak

Rob Reiner’s courtroom drama “A Few Good Men,”  an adaptation of Aaron Sorkin's stage play,  starts with a brutal act of extra-legal disciplinary action against Marine Pvt. William Santiago at the Marine barracks in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, located on the southeast tip of Cuba.  At “Gitmo,”   two of Santiago’s fellow Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold Dawson (Wolgang Bodison) and Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall), stuff a rag into his mouth, hogtie his arms and legs with duct tape. Then they watch in horror as their squadmate starts bleeding copiously. Santiago dies, and Dawson and Downey are accused of conspiracy and murder.

A few days later, Lt. Commander JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore), a Navy legal officer assigned to the Judge Advocate General's Internal Affairs division, reports to the JAG office in Washington. D.C..  Smart and ambitious, Galloway requests to be assigned to be Dawson and Downey's defense counsel.

However, her superior officer at JAG, Capt. West (John M. Jackson) has other ideas. Galloway can assist in the Marines' defense, but the case has been assigned to Lieutenant Junior Grade Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), a cocky yet somewhat diffident Navy lawyer. Kaffee has a habit of pushing for plea bargains.and who has never participated in a courtroom proceeding.

Galloway's confidence is not bolstered any when she meets Kaffee for the first time (playing baseball in his off-duty hours), and her misgivings are reinforced by the sardonic interplay between Kaffee and Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak), the third legal officer assigned to the defense team.

Lt. Weinberg: Cmdr. Galloway, Lt. Kaffee is considered to be the best litigator in our office. He successfully plea bargained 44 cases in 9 months.

Kaffee: One more and I get a set of steak knives.

“You Can’t Handle the Truth!”

"A Few Good Men" follows this unlikely trio as Kaffee leads the defense of Lance Corporal Dawson and Pfc. Downey , He also seeks to find out why his clients killed Pvt. Willie Santiago.

Was it, as prosecutor Capt. Jack Ross (Kevin Bacon) claims, a simple case of premeditated murder? Did Dawson and Downey soak the rag in poison to make sure Santiago never left Guantanamo alive?

Or was it, as the accused claim, a "Code Red" -- an unofficial act of "discipline" -- ordered by their immediate superior, Lt. Jonathan James Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland)?

As anyone familiar with movies and television shows of the courtroom drama genre know, the outcome of the trial is not in doubt.

Sorkin and Reiner stick to most of the conventions of the genre,  but "A Few Good Men"'s courtroom drama is essentially a setup for one of the greatest clashes of wills and mindsets in film history -- the battle of wits between Kaffee and Col. Nathan R. Jessep (Jack Nicholson) the commander of Guantanamo Naval Base’s Marine detachment.

Jessup is a hard-nosed, take-charge, and ruthless officer who'll tolerate no flaws and no dissent in his unit. With his own career on the line, Jessup is torn between the need to cover up the truth behind the "Code Red" incident and his desire to crush Kaffee.

Memorably,  the confrontation between Kaffee and Jessep results in this now famous exchange:

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I think I'm entitled.

Col. Jessep: You want answers?

Kaffee: I want the truth.

Col. Jessep: You can't handle the truth.

My Take

"A Few Good Men" works on so many levels that it's almost a perfect film. Its courtroom drama is fairly predictable, although to Sorkin's credit the script avoids a typical Hollywood  ending for everyone.

To me, what makes "A Few Good Men" is the combination of great casting, sharply written dialog, and strong character development. I was impressed by Kaffee's story arc. In “A Few Good Men,”  Cruise plays a young man who starts the film wanting to avoid responsibility and afraid to get out of his late father's still-imposing shadow. By the third act of the film, Kaffee realizes that he is in awe of his father's own accomplishments (a successful judge who became Attorney General of the United States), a theme that attracted Rob Reiner to the project.

As the director  says in the audio commentary track, Reiner grew up watching his father Carl become a legend in show business as an actor, writer and director; "A Few Good Men" reflects both Reiner and Kaffee's ambivalent feelings about having "legends" for fathers.

Blu-ray Details

Studio: Sony Pictures/Columbia

Blu-ray Release Date: September 18, 2007

MPAA Rating: R

Running Time: 138 minutes

Video

• Codec: MPEG-2
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

• English: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
• English: Dolby Digital 5.1
• German: LPCM 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
• German: Dolby Digital 5.1
• French: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Hungarian: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Polish: Dolby Digital 2.0

Subtitles

• English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Korean, Norwegian, Romanian, Slovenian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish

Discs

• 50GB Blu-ray Disc
• Single disc (1 BD)

Playback

• Region free