A Few Good Men

A Few Good Men was originally a play written by Aaron Sorkin, an American playwright who is known for his work on biopic movies like Moneyball, Steve Jobs, and The Social Network, but made name for himself with Broadway plays like The Farmsworth Invention, a version of To Kill a Mockingbird, and mainly, A Few Good Men, which was released in 1989. Getting inspiration through phone conversations with his sister who was a Law School student, A Few Good Men was given the movie treatment in 1992 and was directed by Rob Reiner, who has been involved with several different movies with differing genres; from Sleepless in Seattle, The Princess Bride, and Misery. Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee (played by Tom Cruise) is tasked with defending two marines, Harold Dawson and Lounden Downey (played by Wolfgang Bodison and James Marshall) who are accused of murdering another marine under orders from their superiors. Not being an enthusiastic attorney, Kaffee originally begrudgingly works on the case with Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway (played by Demi Moore) to try and find a way to get these two marines a less strenuous sentence due to the supposed forceful push from Colonel Nathan R. Jessep (played by Jack Nicholson) who was  allowing the abuse that was happening to the killed marine and doesn’t view his actions as wrong in comparison to the strictness that is required when training people to defend the country. Facing an uphill battle and needing to find a way to win a case where the accused are indeed guilty of the charge, Kaffee and his team work to expose the corrupting influence of the colonel in order to give these marines some form of justice in the courtroom. A Few Good Men was a critically beloved movie when it came out, becoming a box office hit by grossing over $243 million against its $40 million budget, as well as being nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture.

This type of courthouse political drama seems like a type of story and film that feels right up Aaron Sorkin’s wheelhouse as he’s known for being attached to a lot of projects that feature similar elements, and due to Rob Reiner being pretty comfortable doing a variety of genres from rom com, horror, to political drama, he seemed like a decent choice to helm the movie. To say that this movie feels like it functions and flows similarly to a stage play would be a waste of time as that was its original medium, but this actually isn’t a problem as it can work within the framework in certain parts of this flick. What fails through this direction is how a lot of the movie’s secondary elements (mainly pieces that shape the story outside of the main case) are either unexplained or just poorly set-up. The screenplay for the majority of the secondary pieces of this movie (including the character set-up, a lot of opening exposition, and even a majority of the first act) is not handled in the best way. Its skimming the bare minimum of what is required for this kind of story, but nothing is established that allows these characters to be identifiable or even that engaging outside of what they can offer to this case, and even then, that just comes through specific dialogue, it isn’t always felt in how they are portrayed. The build-up to the trial isn’t presented as a mystery of ‘who did it’ and instead relies on ‘how it was done and why’ which on a surface level is more unique and engaging, but the movie doesn’t allow the audience to figure out pieces and clues on their own, but rather spells everything out right from the beginning who and what is responsible, so there’s no anticipation of how to out maneouvre the problem. It’s a pretty unsubtle movie (its hard not to be when it has Tom Cruise in it), but the movie’s second act really takes the movie in a better direction. The court case feels like everybody is in their stride and provides some very enjoyably fast-paced scenes with complicated but understandable dialogue which holds the audience for the remaining hour the film has (which makes sense thanks to Sorkin’s involved). Its clear this is the centre piece of the film and has all the focus put into it, and it really does payoff with a lot of the more memorable scenes and lines coming for this section of the film.

The problems with the screenplay handling its characters leaves a lot of them either feeling like one-note cartoon characters, or blank shells whose only purpose is for support or to be pawns. The convicted marines feel pretty stale, but that does come across as intentional; like they’re programmed to not have much outside of this one mindset. Jack Nicholson is portrayed as so obviously evil in this that it even overshadows every other obviously evil role he’s ever played. While it can be enjoyably wicked at times and his final moments do feel pretty intense, its just such a cartoonishly blank character that it’s a little annoying how it took this long for anyone to see how obviously corrupt he is. Demi Moore suffers an interesting problem in that her entire performance and character feels solely presented to make the main character look better rather than to prop herself up. The audience is told that this character is highly qualified in both military and law, yet she constantly makes bad decisions, is talked down by people for no real reason and only provides problems in the film. It feels like its just so that Cruise’s character looks better because he’s somehow better than her for no apparent reason other than what the movie is presenting us with. It gives no meat to chew on, she’s doesn’t offer anything productive in the long run,  and she is a pretty forgettable role because of it. Cruise’s typical tropes of feeling very derpy and shouting all come out in this performance and half of it is appropriately annoying and pretty unlikeable for the first half. However, within the courtroom scene, his quick-speaking and arrogant attitude works much better in this setting, and it actually feels more believable that he’s a competent lawyer as opposed to the earlier scenes where it never felt genuine. He comes across more as a spoiled rich jock as opposed to an actual lawyer (and the movie just saying he’s fantastic doesn’t equal the audience actually feeling it)

It’s clear that the best scenes that work in this movie are the ones within the trial when the actors are allowed to bounce off the other in quick succession without honestly having to worry about things like character or story. This comes from Sorkin’s talent for writing these kind of scenes, as he’s been trademarked for having a gift at constructing these fast-paced dialogue moments with extended monologues. It probably comes from his history as a playwright and explains why he’s connected to other projects that feature similarly fast-paced scenes. The movie’s original play lay-out matches with how the movie is paced, written, and even acted. The movie doesn’t waste time on anything that isn’t feeding information into the final court scene (explaining why there’s little character backstory or even too much depth), there’s very little variety in shot compositions by Robert Richardson or even environments the scenes take place in, rather straightforward face-to-face shots with nowhere else to focus on, and the very loud ‘shouty’ method of acting which seems to counteract the quick softer talking moments to feel like specific ‘gasps’ moments which would happen in the play. Regardless of whether or not this transition could have been altered out, it doesn’t feel like a hindrance to the movie unlike other play-to-movie versions. The script and story lay-out feel fitting for this type of portrayal, so it doesn’t feel too distracting.

A Few Good Men proves to be a well-made movie with enough familiar talent behind it to make it work as a filmed version of the play before it. It manages to avoid the problems that most transitioning projects have where the styles and pacing don’t match with most movies, but here there aren’t too many issues like that. It’s true the characters are pretty flat/annoying, the screenplay could be better handled, and the opening act is not very engaging, but there’s some pretty great scenes in the courtroom later on which makes the second and third act much more engaging by comparison. Even these faults don’t wreck the movie as a whole but keep it back from others of its type that are intricately written as well as emotionally engaging. If you can’t handle the truth, it might not be your type of film, but otherwise it may offer you something up if you’re willing to wait for those trial scenes.