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| Few Good Men, A |
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  (8/10)
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Runtime: 138 |
| Public Rating: 8.70 (73 votes) |
Director: Rob Reiner |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Drama |
Year: 1992 |
| Writer(s): Aaron Sorkin |
| Reviewed by: Arturo García Lasca |
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This was probably the first time I saw Jack Nicholson in a movie, and ever since I've been convinced he must have some kind of sickness, nobody can have a facial expression like that! Although he's not the star of this film, I thought he gave the best performance, with the rest of the cast -what a cast it was!- also giving fine performances. It had it's bad things, but I think the strong script and acting made it a memorable film.
Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise), a Marine officer who has never been in court before but has graduated from Harvard law school, is assigned to defend two privates who are charged with the murder of one of their collegues. Daniel, along with another Lieutenant, Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak) and Lieutenant Commander JoAnne 'Jo' Galloway (Demi Moore) will try to get the best deal they can. But Dawson and Downey -the defendants- say they live by a code of honor and they refuse to accept any deals, no matter how much is their time in prisson reduced; they want to plead not guilty, claiming that Liutenant James Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland) ordered them to apply private Santiago -the deseased- a "Red Code", which is supossed to be a painful lesson to teach the soldiers some discipline; unfortunately, in this case the soldier died.There is a Lieutenant Colonel Matthew Andrew Markinson (J.T. Walsh) who was also in Cuba working with Col. Jessep, he seems to be in disagreement with his orders and disappears from the base, later talking to Daniel and confessing Jessep ordered the red code. But Daniel and the other two lawyers have pretty much no evidence to proove that Dawson and Downey were just following orders, which is driving them crazy and nearly convincing them that they'll lose the case, no matter what. Of course, we know superhero Tom Cruise can't let that happen.
What some people refuse to believe is the fact that Col. Jessep, who has a super-clean record and can make big things such as hiding a flight, was mind-played by Daniel in a way that by the end he'd just tell him exactly what he wanted. To be honest, I don't really buy it either, but it doesn't matter since it made a hell of a cool scene, with memorable lines and everything, "You can't handle the truth!". I think Nicholson gave the best performance in the film, and everyone else was just fine, including Kevin Bacon, who I didn't mention while telling the story line. I honestly thought the weakest character was the main one, not that I have anything against Cruise, but back you can clearly notice he's not even in the same league as Nicholson; of course he has now improved his acting abilities ("Magnolia").
The direction bothered me a little bit. Through most of the film, the camera was doing certain movement that was annoying me. It was like this: It was in some place, then slowly moves to a side a bit, then returns to the place it originally was. Now I don't know if there is a name for that, but they over used that element, along with another one I wont bother to explain here. Appart from that, everything that concerns direction was all right.
Another thing I disliked was the music. By the end of the film, the music played is so 'happy', I didn't think it fit with the kind of movie this was, with the kind of ending it had. But those are minor details. The story is pretty fine, and the entire cast was worth watching. "A Few Good Men" is a good one, I'd recommend it anytime.
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