MovieChat Forums > Rules of Engagement (2000) Discussion > great courtroom scenes courtesy of Samue...

great courtroom scenes courtesy of Samuel Jackson...

posted 20 years ago by bluez24
3 replies | jump to latest

This movie has some very good, tense courtroom scenes. Such as when Guy Pearce (prosecutor) threatens to play the tape of what Childers (Samuel Jackson) said, and Childers admits that he referred to the crowd as mother *beep* Then a few minutes later when being questioned about the "Rules of Engagement for Ground Conflict in Urban Areas" Childers gets defensive and goes into his lengthy answers about how in a war innocent people get hurt, etc. and finally he gets very vocal and rages about how his concern was, understandably, the safety of his soldiers. Pearce and Jackson did a great job of making us feel the tension. It reminds one of the court scenes with Jack Nicholson in "A Few Good Men," but I think the scenes in "Rules" were a little more entertaining.

[–] trpdean 19 years ago

In this movie, they get to the heart of what happened. In A Few Good Men, they really just skip the issue - regardless of whether there were orders, did those men do what they were accused of doing -- or not? Somehow A Few Good Men just forgets all about what they're charged with - and they're somehow acquitted because of what their superior had said -- this makes no sense. Forget what the superior said - they were honor-bound to disobey it. Yet the movie never gets to the issue for which they're being tried.

This movie has its feet on the ground - and follows logically from one point to another. It's very gripping - Pearce and Jones give good performances - and as a lawyer I appreciated the fact that the judge seemed to make good judgment calls on every objection.

[–] NineDarter 18 years ago

The issue in A Few Good Men is alot more cloudy than in ROE. In Good Men, they are dealing with the issue of whether its murder (and who's responsible) if it is as a result of an order given by a superior officer. Its not during a war, there are no extreme circumstances. An order was given, someone died as a result. Were they right?? Are they accountable?? I'm not a lawyer, neither was I (or am) in the military so I don't understand how it works. However in the movie Jessop is guilty of murder for giving the order, they are guilty of conduct unbecoming for following it? Talk about complicated issues.

ROE however, is about following the rules during war. Did he break the rules of engagement? Was he right to order his men to fire on that crowd? It was about proving the crowd fired first because as stated in the film 'a civilian ceases to be a civilian once they have a weapon' (or something like that) There are more mitigating circumstances in ROE and I think the case for and against was much more clear cut. This allows the movie to follow the conclusions more logically

Prof Farnsworth: Most video tapes were damaged in 2047 during the second coming of Jesus

[–] dl_maniac 19 years ago

In my opinion, you gotta watch "The Caine Mutiny" (1953) to appreciate what great court martial looks like. This one by ROE is no good enough to be great. Frankly, not even close.