A Few Good Men

Welcome back to “Jack Nicholson Month” where today we will look at one of the most powerful courtroom drama, “A Few Good Men,” released in 1992. The role doesn’t have to be big, but if it’s good, and if the actor playing it is great, the results can be completely altered. Witness Jack Nicholson’s vicious, funny, excellently reptilian role in Rob Reiner’s entertaining movie, adapted by Aaron Sorkin from his hit Broadway courtroom drama.

Nicholson doesn’t steal the film, which would mean that he somehow separates himself from everybody else in it. Rather, in the course of only a handful of scenes, he seems to fill the entire production, giving it weight, density and point that might not otherwise be apparent.

The role, magnificently written, is made to Nicholson’s order. It’s that of Colonel Nathan R. Jessep of the United States Marine Corps, a tough, racist Vietnam veteran, a career officer shaped by decades of Cold-War politics. By chance, Jessep is stationed in that last corner of the Earth where the Cold War goes on as if there were no yesterday.

Vincent Canby of the New York Times mentioned in his review, “He's the commander of the marines stationed at the American naval base on the southwestern coast of Cuba at Guantanamo Bay, on a small bit of arid real estate protecting one of the best anchorages in the western Atlantic, a legacy of the Spanish-American War. It's there that the United States and Cuba, separated by barbed wire and command posts, have continued to co-exist through the Bay of Pigs invasion, the great missile crisis and a continuing, crippling economic embargo, in one of the strangest examples of symbiosis to be found in all of international relations.”

This geographic fact becomes a central look in the film adaptation, which stylishly opens up the story of a military court-martial without allowing the stress to evaporate. There are times when the movie seems to forcefully spoon-feed the audience important information, and when the audience might as well think whether the emotional disaster of the defense lawyers really are of more interest than the fates of the two men on trial.

However, such things are built into the structure and nature of the drama, which is less about the jobs of the military than about the procedure of this particular question. The story is this: in the course of what appears to be a hazing incident at Guantanamo, a Marine private has died, apparently poisoned by a rag stuffed into his through before his mouth was taped. Two enlisted men are charged with the murder. As often happens during proceedings of this type, the victim and the men on trial become less important than the politics around the case.

The Marine Corps would like to get it over with quickly and efficiently as possible. To this case, a hot-shot young naval lawyer, Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee, played by Tom Cruise, is assigned to the defense with the understanding that he’ll persuade the defendants to accept a plea bargain. Also on the defense is Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway, played by the hot Demi Moore, who acts as Kaffee’s conscience, eventually convincing him that there is a strong possibility that the two enlisted men were, in fact, acting on orders from their officers.

The investigation, mainly started by Kaffee with some lack of enthusiasm, uncovers the fact that the victim, Private William T. Santiago, played by Michael DeLorenzo, had for some time been trying to transfer out of his unit. Also, he ignored both the Marine Corps code and its chain of command. He had wrote letters to Washington, offering to testify that he had witnessed an incident in which a member of his unit had by chance fired on a Cuban watchtower near the base.

As the investigation continues, Kaffee and Galloway, who clearly have never been to the theaters, read a book or spend a lot of time talking to career service personnel, are surprised to discover a kind of military mind that, to them, seem ancient. The two defendants at first behave like robots. Private Louden Downey, played by James Marshall, is so silent that he seems seriously impeded. His co-defendant and spokesman, Lance Corporal Harold W. Dawson, played by Wolfgang Bodison, refuses all offers of help. Canby mentioned, “He will stoically accept whatever punishment is meted out. The two men simply parrot the Marines' code of fidelity to unit, corps, God and country.”

On the evidence-finding trip to Guantanamo, Kaffee, Galloway and their assistant Lieutant Sam Weinberg, played by Kevin Pollak, have their first run-in with Jessep at a scary lunch, during which the Colonel happily lies through his teeth. For Galloway’s benefit, he also describes the special kind of high one can get when sleeping with a superior officer. According to Jessep, that’s one of the few benefits of an integrated service.

Canby noted, “"A Few Good Men" doesn't pack the surprises of "Witness for the Prosecution," nor does it probe very deeply into the psyche of men who exercise the power of dictators in a society that congratulates itself on its freedoms. It's no "Full-Metal Jacket." "A Few Good Men" recalls something of "The Caine Mutiny Court Martial," though it is most troubling not for the questions it raises, but for the casual way it finally treats its two lost, utterly bewildered defendants.”

The screenplay is a good one, directed with care and acted, for the most part, with terrific confidence. Among the supporting cast who do exceptional work are Donald Sutherland’s son, Kiefer Sutherland (aka Jack Bauer from the famous “42” sitcom), as a Marine officer who is going to become exactly like Jessep, J.T. Walsh as an officer fatally damaged by conscience, Kevin Bacon who appears as the military prosecutor, and Bodison, a new young actor whose performance as the more famous defendant gives the film its depressed shock value.

I agree with Canby when he said, “Mr. Cruise, Ms. Moore and Mr. Pollak are perfectly adequate in less flashy roles, which, unlike the others, appear to have been constructed to keep the plot moving right along. They have to play it reasonably straight, which must be crazy when the actors around them are having such an enjoyable time.

Nicholson is in his own league. His Jessep is both a joy to watch because of Nicholson’s skill, and an explanation of why the United States base at Guantanamo Bay, whatever its military value, continues to exist. “A Few Good Men” is a big commercial entertainment of unusually satisfying order. It also has the famous line from the 90s, “You Can’t Handle the Truth!” In the last scene when Cruise and Nicholson are at each other’s throat is something we see a lot in court, for those who watch courtroom shows.

Once again, if you haven’t seen this movie, why are you reading this review? Go out and rent the movie because it’s one of the best courtroom films out there and you’ll absolutely love it. Stay tuned next week to see what I will review next for “Jack Nicholson’s Month.”