A FEW GOOD MEN — 1992/Courtroom drama based on a play.
Directed by :Rob Reiner
Cast : Jack Nichol­son, Tom cruise, Demi moore,Kevin Bacon [ Truly Star studded ! ]

Some­times, I won­der about the vari­ety of films, a direc­tor could have in his career. Rob reiner is a jovial guy who directed 2 top-10 fea­tured roman­tic come­dies [ When Harry met sally, sleep­less in Seat­tle ] also worked with the finest court­room drama ‘A few good men’. He is the one who directed ‘the bucket list’ also. He is tal­ented enough to show a court­room drama equal to an action thriller.

Plot :
There’s a dif­fer­ence between fol­low­ing orders and fol­low­ing one’s con­science. A civil­ian can fol­low his con­sciences but how about a marine who was taught code, corps, god and coun­try ? The film is set in 1992. Two marines are accused for mur­der­ing a fel­low marine at the Gitmo [ Namma Guan­tanamo bay naval base in Cuba ]. A young, inex­pe­ri­enced US Navy lawyer [ Tom ] and naval [ not navel :) ] inves­ti­ga­tion offi­cer [ Demi — what a beauty when she doesn’t speak :) ] inves­ti­gates this open-shut case in defense. Dur­ing the inves­ti­ga­tion, 2 marines reveal about an oper­a­tion called ‘code red’ under the orders of Lieu­tenant and the ‘tough­est’ leader n Com­mand­ing offi­cer [ Jack Nichol­son ]. Of course, the marine supe­ri­ors cover the truth under the car­pet with sup­port­ing documents.But the other marine offi­cer in Jack’s team dis­ap­pears and turns against Jack to help the defense. After a stage, even this approver turned offi­cer couldn’t help Tom’s team.

Tom’s team almost give up the case and then take a chance of ques­tion­ing the com­mand­ing offi­cer in the court­room about code red. Know­ing a fail­ure could do much dam­age to his career, Tom boldly takes the chance. The com­mand­ing offi­cer jack says ‘You can’t han­dle the truth !” and con­tin­ues telling the truth. The inter­ro­ga­tion diverts the entire flow of the case. What wins is more impor­tant rather than who wins.

View :
Just watch the eye catch­ing ini­tial drill of US marines [ title sequence ]. A film has to set the viewer about the movie in the very first scene itself. The cast is seri­ously a rich one and they jus­tify their pres­ence espe­cially Jack Nichol­son. Sur­pris­ingly Tom did a decent job in this film with few over­board per­for­mances — nor­mally his per­son­al­ity spoils his char­ac­ters [ Sports man­ager in the film Jerry Maguire ].

I m sure that Demi’s role might not have been in the orig­i­nal play. What a beau­ti­ful lawyer except her con­trast,sand­pa­pery voice. Kevin bacon did a decent job. Even the good actor [ Cuba wood­ing Jr . remem­ber Carl bras­hear in Men of Hon­our ] played a small role — just a wit­ness. The high­light is Jack’s per­for­mance. . Espe­cially, his smile con­veys every­thing [ power, pride, cun­ning­ness, enor­mous con­fi­dence ] about his char­ac­ter[ ever watched his eye­brow — meant for a per­fect Vil­lain ]. Also, he was nom­i­nated for acad­emy award — sup­port­ing actor for this movie.In this 138 mins movie, he appears hardly 20 mins with splen­did per­for­mance [ Not to won­der.. because Antony hop­kins won a an acad­emy award for his 16mins pres­ence in the movie “silence of the lambs” ].

I liked the role of accused marines — they believe that life is all about just being a marine and noth­ing else. Also, they ask the lawyer whether the can rejoin marines if declared as ‘not guilty’. The movie got a nice non-disturbing back­ground score much with piano. I liked a shot which describes the way the defense team spend their 3 weeks time in a sin­gle shot [ it appears like ]. I have to appre­ci­ate the writer that he avoided cliche of a blos­som­ing rela­tion between Tom and Demi. [ poi dhaane :) ].

Con­clu­sion

No won­der this movie is in AFIs top 10 court-room drama films.

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