The older I get... - A Few Good Men (1992) Discussion

[–] Rolltide (964) 4 years ago

It should be obvious to anybody with a functioning brain that this is Rob Reiner's left wing view of America. Excessively politically correct and negative.

The film was made in peace time right after the fall of the Berlin wall so there is this superficial view towards the military. I'm sure Reiner was thinking the military should be some social club to help minorities get ahead.

The smart guy is black. The slow guy is white and the victim is Hispanic. Of course the bad guy is a right wing reactionary white guy.

Amazing that such an easily predictable film is liked by so many but these are likely the same people who cry during the Green mile.

reply

[–] liscarkat (18410) 4 years ago

"people who cry during the Green mile"

Yeah, I never got that. Those guys were killers, and earned their seat in the chair. Just because the guy has a pet rat or something, so what? The one movie reaction I can think of that is even worse is people crying over "Dead Man Walking". F'ing white trash psychopath rapes, tortures, and murders, and I'm supposed to align myself with this demented nun who is so concerned with him but couldn't care less about the victims' families? Too bad lunatic leftists get to make most of the movies.

reply

[–] moviechatterer (15643) 3 years ago

The smart guy is black. The slow guy is white and the victim is Hispanic. Of course the bad guy is a right wing reactionary white guy.

ooh , you dug up some woke from 30 years ago

reply

[–] drrclavan (667) 4 years ago

Yes.... BUT.... if the president is a lunatic living dementia joe xiden then the armed forces are only used against the public. So ONLY a President like President Donald J. Trump is capable of restoring the faith in the military. Right now, the military can't be trusted.

reply

[–] Bloodworth79 (5687) 4 years ago

Lol, true

reply

[–] bobbynynex (1505) 4 years ago

no reason for amercians to occupy cuba

reply

[–] [deleted] 4 years ago

I heard they used to have great casinos down there!

reply

[–] ncdwbmk6 (79) 4 years ago

And during Prohibition, you could still get whiskey in Cuba.

reply

[–] ccr1633 (1523) 4 years ago

"no reason for amercians to occupy cuba"

I guess it's news to you buddy: they don't.

reply

[–] kwestmo (4385) 3 years ago

Americans don't occupy Cuba. Gitmo is a naval base that is 45 squares miles. The bases sets on leased property. The military is not allowed outside of the base as described in the film.

reply

[–] Ranb (9616) 3 years ago

Colonel Jessup is completely unsympathetic to anyone with even a little bit of common sense or humanity. He ordered the men under his command to illegally discipline one of their own, threw his obedient soldiers under the bus when things went wrong, lied to the people investigating his crimes and then had official records altered to cover his ass.

It is obvious to the most casual observer that Jesop was unfit to command and finally got what was coming to him.

reply

[–] GreenGoblinsOck8 (7701) 3 years ago

Ranab, I agree. Nicholson's character had a guy murdered. He is not sympathetic. And this is coming from a conservative republican who supported the Iraq War.

reply

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 3 years ago

Also agree.

OP and the ppl who agree with them are just edgelords. They caught the whiff of a reactionary perspective and think they're so learned.

The reality is, Jessup did have some good points. Yeah Kaffee is just a pretty boy in a suit. He doesn't know what Jessup knows, and he doesn't know what it's like to stand on that wall. Most likely, Kaffee cannot make the hard decisions that a man like Jessup needs to.

But yeah, Jessup is still a rotten person and did some really bad things. And he got arrested for them. This is just a testament to quality character writing.

reply

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 2 years ago

The reality is, Jessup did have some good points

I just posted about this below ... Jessup's sneaky. He's addressing the importance of his job as a way of distracting from his crimes.

I'll admit, though, that I have a hard time expecting our military, whom we train to fight for us and kill for us, to behave as perfect gentlemen at all other times.

Example: I thought what Cpl. Motari did was absolutely shitty (tossing the puppy), but again, we expect him to kill for us. Can we honestly, reasonably, not expect a little cruelty to leak into that mindset?

reply

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 2 years ago

I replied to your comment below. Thanks for the ping.

Example: I thought what Cpl. Motari did was absolutely shitty (tossing the puppy), but again, we expect him to kill for us. Can we honestly, reasonably, not expect a little cruelty to leak into that mindset?

Very good point. We want them to be killers or to organize killers. That comes with something. And I think this feeds into Jessup's spiel. We don't want to know what men like him know. We don't want to know what they have to decide. But we want them to do what needs to be done nevertheless.

reply

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

While it was kind of a dick move to blame Dawson and Downey for it I totally understand where Jessup is coming from. He made huge sacrifices and puts his life on the line every day to keep America safe and in return he has people like Kaffee who has no clue what it’s like judging him and attacking the way he does it.

reply

[–] Ranb (9616) 3 years ago

Jessup sacrificed his own men and his integrity to get where he was. But I'm sure it pissed him right off that a Ltjg weasel like Kaffee brought him down. :)

reply

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

I agree. His methods were wrong and he had become corrupt, but his philosophy, ethics and worldview were spot on.

Come for the Kaffee, stay for the Jessup. Millennials and Gen Z femboys have much to learn from him.

Hard to believe Reiner could direct such a nuanced masterpiece, and then make the crude Leftist propaganda that is Ghosts of Mississippi.

reply

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

And that’s what makes a good villain, one with understandable motivations, you see where they are coming from even though their actions and methods make them bastards.

reply

[–] Ranb (9616) 3 years ago

Jessup's "ethics" included unlawful orders to his men, stabbing his men in the back and lying. His philosophy included doing anything to advance his career.

reply

[–] Drooch (5333) 3 years ago

Those were foolish acts of expediency and led to his downfall, they were examples of him betraying his ideals, not practising them.

reply

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 3 years ago

Jessup legitimately did want to defend America, he was willing to step over lines however that made him immoral. He had noble intentions but he did immoral things to achieve them.

reply

[–] Ranb (9616) 2 years ago

I don't recall a single line from the film that shows Jessup actually wanted to defend America. He seemed more interested in advancing his career so he could get sexual favors from higher ranking women as he advanced.

reply

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 2 years ago

“We’re in the business of saving lives”

“You fucking people don’t know how to defend a nation”

reply

[–] Ranb (9616) 2 years ago

So there was no irony in the fact that he abandoned one of his soldiers to illegal discipline that either resulted in his death or he was overly eager to at least blame the death on his junior soldiers instead of taking responsibility for it himself?

It was only at the end when Ltjg Kaffee trapped him in a lie that he came clean

It seems Col Jessup was more in the business of watching his star rise.

reply

[–] MovieChatUser497 (18943) 2 years ago

Yes, he felt cutting Dawson and Downey loose would be better for the country l

reply

[–] Boricanator (1440) 2 years ago

I don’t. Jessep was not making the U.S. safer.

He disobeyed orders and ordered a code red at Santiago. And why? To cover up an illegal shooting over the fence. That illegal shooting actually risked lives as it could’ve provoked a foreign country into war.

By disobeying orders, Jessup undermined the military and put American lives in danger

reply

[–] ExTechOp (2770) 2 years ago

I agree with Boricanator, below.

Jessup was an egotist, full of self-importance over the (admittedly vital) job he'd been tasked with.

He's like a surgeon so convinced of his own perfection that, when he kills a patient, it's the patient's fault.

We owe him respect for the job he was SUPPOSED to do, the job he AGREED to do ... but we also owe him contempt for what he DID do (order a code red then abandon his own men when it went south)

The brilliance of Nicholson's performance is that we believe Jessup. But what Jessup is doing is sneaky as hell -- he's talking the importance of the job he's SUPPOSED to do to hide the venality of the misdeeds he ALSO did.

reply

[–] acidraindrop (3055) 2 years ago

He's like a surgeon so convinced of his own perfection that, when he kills a patient, it's the patient's fault.

Hmm, I didn't even see it that way. It's a slight nuance that ends up changing the perspective quite a bit. I was mainly seeing it as a man whose philosophy is true, but failed to live up to what he is supposed to do, the job that he agreed to do. I know Kaffe was talking about his pride and his arrogance. But the suggestion that Jessup took his principles to hide his own misdeeds is a different sort of rottenness. I just saw that he was a cruel man behaved unjustly. But Jessup could also been viewed as a defensive man in denial of his own cruelty.

I really appreciate many of the varying takes in this thread.

reply

[–] Oblivioid (1483) 2 years ago

Jessup is written like a Bond villain. He has arguably logical reasoning and motivations. But, then it is revealed to the audience that behind his good traits, lies an evil that makes you realize that he needs to be taken down.

The Man With The Golden Gun springs to mind, where villain Scaramanga has a plan to sell solar energy production to the world and basically bankrupt Big Oil. And then, he shows Bond his solar powered laser which disintegrates an airplane.

That's Jessup.

reply