A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

“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 Aff...

When I was a junior in high school, 20th Century Fox released director Harold Becker's  Taps,  a well-acted if rather unrealistic film about a group of teenaged military school cadets who, with visions of honor and duty in their minds, challenge local law enforcement agencies and even the Army National Guard to keep their military academy from being closed. Starring a  Patton- esque George C. Scott as Gen. Harland Bache, the superintendent of Bunker Hill Academy,  Taps also features a cast of young actors who were either already Academy Award-winners (Timothy Hutton) or destined for future Oscars and/or greater success in Hollywood (Sean Penn, Tom Cruise). Based on the novel  Father Sky  by Devery Freeman, the screenplay written by Robert Mark Kamen, James Lineberger and Darryl Ponicsan is best seen as an allegory about teenagers' extremist interpretations of such notions as honor, duty and courage rather than being a true to life mish-mash which blends a...