Cast: Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, Guy Pearce, Bruce Greenwood, Ben Kingsley, Blair Underwood, Anne Archer, Philip Baker Hall
Director: William Friedkin
Producers: Scott Rudin, Richard D. Zanuck
Screenplay: Stephen Gaghan, based on a story by James Webb
Cinematography: William A. Fraker
Music: Mark Isham
U.S. Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Rules of Engagement reaches theater screens with a troubled production history behind it. At one point, former Secretary of the Navy, James Webb, who is credited with having developed the story, demanded that his name be removed from the project, claiming that a scene or scenes in the final cut "betrayed" his original vision. Only after changes were made did Webb relent. There have also been rumors of massive last-minute edits (possibly connected with Webb's demand), which may explain the choppiness of the film's narrative.
Rules of Engagement suffers from a serious split personality disorder. On the one hand, it wants to explore the fascinating question of when killing people in combat turns into murder. On the other hand, the movie wants to present a straightforward courtroom thriller, with all of the usual trappings (an innocent man wrongly accused, a defense attorney striving for redemption, a belligerent prosecuting attorney, and a big speech at the end). Unfortunately, respected director William Friedkin (The French Connection, The Exorcist) and screenwriter Stephen Gaghan are unable to effectively wed these two elements. The movie creates an over-the-top villain who renders the first approach moot, then shoots down the second one with a feeble ending.
The movie starts out successfully enough, introducing us to lead character Terry L. Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) back in the days when he was hunting through the jungles of Vietnam. In short order, Rules of Engagement clouds Childers' moral character by having him shoot a prisoner-of-war in cold blood in order to save American men, including his friend, Hayes Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones). In his view, sparing the lives of U.S. soldiers is worth violating provisions of the Geneva Convention. He does not regret his action, and he does not look back.
28 years later, both Childers and Hodges are colonels. Childers is the head of a special forces group, and Hodges, a lawyer of little distinction, is about to retire. Then, on a seemingly routine "babysitting" mission to Yemen, where a group of protesters are frightening the U.S. ambassador (Ben Kingsley) and his wife (Anne Archer), everything goes terribly wrong. Childers gets the citizens out, but loses three men in the process. When under heavy fire, he orders retaliation, and the result is 83 dead men, women, and children. The political firestorm demands a scapegoat, and the U.S. National Security Advisor, William Sokal (Bruce Greenwood), destroys evidence suggesting Childers' innocence in order to attain a conviction on 83 counts of murder. In search of a defense attorney, Childers approaches his old friend Hodges, who advises him, "I'm a good enough lawyer to know you need a better lawyer than me." Despite this, Childers presses Hodges into service, claiming, "If I'm guilty of this, I'm guilty of everything I've done in combat in the last 30 years."
One of the earliest apparent problems with Rules of Engagement is its lack of credibility. The entire operation in Yemen seems contrived and unrealistic - as if a chain of events had to happen in a particular manner in order for the plot to proceed as it does. Childers is the only one to see weapons in the hands of the so-called "innocent" civilians. He does not fire warning shots. He does not attempt to take out nearby snipers. He does nothing to protect his men until several of them are dead - then he immediately orders them to fire into a crowd. Unfortunately, questions surrounding the morality and necessity of Childers' actions are rendered irrelevant when the film introduces William Sokal, a villain without a single redeeming quality. We hate this man so intently that we immediately buy into Childers' point-of-view because Sokal is determined to destroy the man.
The trial sequences, which comprise about half of the film's running time, have their good points and bad points. There are no dramatic revelations or surprise twists. While this helps in the credibility department, it makes the trial somewhat bland and characterless. There's also the problem of several obvious gaps and omissions in Hodges' defense. When he realizes that a paper trail points to an important piece of evidence having disappeared, he fails to pursue this with bulldog ferocity - he rants about it in court, but never attempts to track down who had it before it vanished. Of course, the fact that it was destroyed in the first place is an act of blatant stupidity - it should have simply been replaced with something less incriminating.
Means to a potentially satisfying resolution are littered throughout the movie, then inexplicably not used. The final ten minutes of Rules of Engagement are unforgivably bad. There is a resolution of sorts, but no catharsis. You leave the theater feeling empty and deflated, because one of the most important aspects of the conclusion is not shown, but related via a closing caption. Actually, the use of captions to tell what happens to characters after the movie ends may raise objections in some quarters. Captions like this are typically reserved for documentaries, based-on-actual-event features, and parodies/comedies. By using them here, Rules of Engagement will trick some viewers into believing that this is a true story, which is it isn't. A Blair Witch Project-style controversy could result. However, while the faux reality approach was necessary to Blair Witch's dramatic success, the same cannot be argued for Rules of Engagement. Here, the captions appear to have been tacked on because the filmmakers ran out of time and didn't want several important plot threads to be left entirely unresolved.
Yet another source of disappointment is that Rules of Engagement evokes the memories of other films, then fails to live up to expectations created by those associations. Anyone who has seen Paths of Glory, A Few Good Men, and Courage Under Fire will immediately make the connections. Just as quickly, they will note that Rules of Engagement is vastly inferior. Those movies had payoffs; this one does not. Those movies had great scenes. This one has an unforgivable, unnecessary shot that resolves a mini-plot thread featuring a legless little girl.
The battle sequences are well-directed and gripping. Rules of Engagements opens strongly; the first half-hour is top notch filmmaking. Borrowing an element of graphic violence from Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan (which may forever alter the way war films are made), Friedkin recreates the bloody chaos of Vietnam and does a credible job with the Yemen operation. Outside of the combat arena, however, he mostly falls short. Despite strong performances from Samuel L. Jackson, Tommy Lee Jones, and Guy Pearce (L. A. Confidential) as the straight-as-an-arrow prosecuting attorney, there's not a lot of excitement during the court scenes. Supporting performances by Ben Kingsley, Anne Archer, Blair Underwood (as Childers' second-in-command in Yemen), and Philip Baker Hall (as Hodges' father) have little impact. Meanwhile, Canadian character actor Bruce Greenwood (a veteran of Atom Egoyan films, who currently can be seen as Leelee Sobieski's father in Here on Earth) is almost too good as the bad guy. Had his performance been less flamboyant, the weakness of the conclusion might not have mattered as much.
Rules of Engagement is not without its strengths, but the movie's bitter aftertaste is caused by missed opportunities, plot holes, and the ending that isn't really an ending. Those who relish courtroom dramas, especially those that put a military man on trial, will find some enjoyment in what this film has to offer, as long as they don't expect a Tom Cruise/Jack Nicholson confrontation. Everyone else should save their time and money. There's not enough here to mark the movie as more than another minor spring distraction. There are some rules, particularly those of solid filmmaking, that Rules of Engagement fails to observe.
© 2000 James Berardinelli