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BeBro
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of the Krauts
Mar 2000
time: 06:21
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Do you know the movie "Rules of Engagement"? It is a military drama starring Samuel L. Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones. They had it on tv recently here, and I thought any movie with those two must be great - I guess I was wrong.
Here's what's going on in the movie (heavy spoiling ahead - I decided against the tags, since this would "hide" most of the post):
The movie opens fifty years ago during a battle in Vietnam. Jones' character and Jackson's character are debating who would outflank some Vietnamese, and who would stay behind. Jackson goes, his men manage to overwhelm some Vietnamese soldiers and officers, but meanwhile Jones' guys are attacked by others which are obviously commanded by the captured officers. Jones' guys are under heavy fire, people get killed, but Jones manages to contact Jackson, asking for help.
Now Jackson decides that it is a good idea to threaten the highest ranking officer (colonel I believe) he captured. He demands that the colonel orders the attacking guys back via radio, otherwise he would kill him. I think (IIRC) he even kills one of the other Vietnamese. In the end the colonel does what he is told, Jones is wounded, but saved.
Time travel forward in the 1990ies.
Jones is now a rather mediocre military attourney, Jackson commands some special forces which can be deployed for several tasks. Just now a crisis in Yemen emerges, and Jackson's guys are ordered to protect, possibly evacuate the embassy personnel.
When their helis arrive, the embassy is under siege - snipers are shooting from the roofs around the building, on the streets is a big crowd, of men, women, children, some are protesting, some are also violent (molotov cokctials etc.). Jackson keeps cool and does his job: evacuating the ambassador plus his family and other personnel. Meanwhile his men guarding the building take casualties - three are dead. Now when all the evacuating is done Jackson goes berserk, orders his soldiers to shoot back into the crowd. Result: 83 deaths, many wounded.
Back in the US there's a trial against him, Jones is his defender, and guess how it all ends.....
*****
What dissappointed me most was that the movie tried to adress critical morale questions, and had interesting conflicts, but IMO handled them all too superficially. For example during the trial the Vietnamese colonel said that he'd have done the same as Jackson did to him. Now what? Is this an argument? Jackson may have acted in a way that is emotionally understandable, but this IMO should not be justified so easily with "the others had probably done the same".
Jackson's actions in the embassy were even more strange. From the beginning, his men are under fire, yet he doesn't do anything against it for quite a long time. He doesn't shoot back at the snipers. But later, when the entire mission is nearly over he orders to shoot into the crowd when he simply could enter his heli and fly away, since his tasks were already accomplished.
Finally his actions are justified with the violence from the Arabs, including those from the crowd. Still, the movie depicted the "counter-attack" rather like a massacre: the US soldiers leave cover, and do what MtG would have called "pray and spray" (maybe without the praying this time) - they simply empty their mags when firing into the crowd, without targetting anyone specifically. That seems not professional to me. And the movie doesn't care about those details, as said it justifies all with the violence from the street. Too easy IMO.
There's another annoying element: evil or weak politicians vs. good soldiers cliches driven to the extreme. The ambassador (Ben Kingsley) is depicted as weak, selfish guy, hiding under the table during the attack. He even forgets to take the US flag into the heli (is this standard procedure when leaving an embassy  ), so Jackson himself has to go back to take the flag. Another guy in Washington just wants to blame Jackson for the bad press the US receives due to the 83 deaths. He even destroys a video tape which would help Jackson in trial (showing that some in the crowd had weapons), and puts pressure on the ambassador to say on trial that the crowd was peaceful until Jackson gave order to start firing. The ambassador, weak as he is, of course does so....
Overall pretty dissappointing, too much flaws, too much cliches. Well, at least acting was good.
Last edited by BeBro on 27-02-2005 at 16:51
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27-02-2005 16:45
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