Good movie. Very engaging. My review *spoilers*
Rules of Engagement is about a US Marine Colonel dropped into Yemen to evacuate an ambassador and his family in the thick of Yemeni protestors who're at the embassy attacking the embassy with stones, molotovs and small arms fire and sporadic AK-47 bursts.
In such a situation, Col Childers (S.L. Jackson) conducts a rescue of the ambassador and his family while restraining himself against the incoming fire which is now more pronounced into a barrage. He watches as a couple of marines get hit and die and over a vantage point, peers into the crowd to see them firing at the marines en masse. Believing retaliation to be the best response, orders his marines to fire back who open up with everything they've got after a brief exchange between the captain of the squad and the CO (SLJ) on account of the presence of women and children in the crowd. Needless to say, there's several casualties including women and children and the incident blows into an international incident.
Enter Tommy Lee Jones who is Childers' youth friend, who was personally rescued by Childers during the vietnam war, and is the defense lawyer.
The movie chugs along with the usual sinister characters and play on your emotion and appeal to your logic which shows sinister character destroy key piece of evidence that will exonerate Childers. However, it is not with force and not fully baked but still gets the job done.
Overall, the situation is very believable and I liked that you truly cannot take sides here. The human psyche is shown decently here. I cannot really fault Childers for taking action, nor can I fault the NSA for acting in higher interest of the United States to prevent even further escalation. However, the adage "the truth will set you free" would've helped the NSA guy.
There are a few shortcomings of the movie such as the other marines who were also present there were conspicuously absent. In such a high profile case, you can be sure every single marine in that company will be on the stand and asked to testify and/or face punishment for the killings. Surely, all the marines will confirm what the Colonel said about returning fire and seeing their marines die first. They will also testify about women and children having weapons.
I am also surprised the Captain wasn't tried for following the order to kill the perceived civilians. The defense lawyer never even explored that area. He could've easily had the Captain testify that the civilians lost civilian privilege because they opened fire and hence he fired back after the order at them.
Also, how did so many weapons disappear from that spot so quickly? Unless the Doctor who testified that he appeared there shortly was also in on this or coerced by Yemeni govt/terrorists to give false information.
Another point is that the security camera would've clearly showed that several protestors did carry weapons into the place. What about the other personnel at the embassy ? No one else there was interviewed or brought to court.
Furthermore, no one bothered to check bullet trajectories or bullet marks on the walls? Surely, you can tell bullets lodged in the wall came from below instead of across the street? In fact, they would've still been embedded in there, no?
The courtroom felt small which made the overall feel small instead of a high profile, magnified case in international spotlight. It should've had the courtroom the size as in A Few Good Men which got it right.
The beauty of the movie is there really seems to be no wrong side. The Yemeni's holding a protest can do whatever the hell they want. The terrorists in their midst did what they always do - create terror. Now, we don't know why they're terrorists too - maybe their loved ones got killed and they're retaliating? The US Colonel did what he had to do to protect his men. The Ambassador was the one snaky lying bastard who shied away from the truth. The NSA guy destroyed evidence to protect the US from a bigger incident. Overall, I could relate to why each person acted a certain way and it was highly believable.
The acting was quite good although never rose above to par excellence. It was certainly above average but the writing, dialog and other aspects such as scene selection and direction and camera angles could've been better. The subject matter was awesome and I felt in the hands of a more accomplished director, could've really been outstanding.
I love Courtroom dramas and especially military ones given how everyone behaves there.
A situation like this happened in Afghanistan recently with a Sargent leaving his post and executing and burning the bodies of several Afghani women, children and older folks in their homes. I don't know all the details but it does look more clear cut there.
Overall, a solid 8/10 from me.