Not original but still entertaining

Rating: 7/10 (16 October 2000)

Despite various flaws, this film succeeds at creating a strong drama with two excellent performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. It is an interesting premise in today's world where the lines between politics and warfare become ever fuzzier. Is a commander justified to engage an enemy to protect his men if there is a high probability of killing innocents? With increasing frequency, radical groups use human shields to capitalize on this Western dilemma. This film brought some of these issues to the fore, and though sloppily done in parts, it was an entertaining treatment of the issue.
Director William Friedkin (The French Connection) is no stranger to action flicks, and the action scenes were extraordinarily realistic. The trial was also well done from a dramatic standpoint, but some glaring flaws went unexplained. For instance, are we to believe that with all the firing that occurred from the ground, forensics experts couldn't find a single bullet hole with a ground-based trajectory?
By far the best aspect of this film was the acting. Tommy Lee Jones was outstanding as the shot-up marine who turned into a second rate lawyer to stay in the service. Samuel L. Jackson continued to prove himself one of the better dramatic actors around with a stellar performance of the dedicated career officer thrown into an impossible situation and then fed to the wolves. Guy Pearce also gave a fine performance as the prosecutor for the government, although he tried to hide his British accent by putting on a New York accent and it sounded phony.
Though unoriginal (see A Few Good Men), this is a very watchable drama with some credibility problems, but the flaws were more than overcome by the great acting. I rated it a 7/10. It offers food for thought regarding the difficult demands we make on our military in the world of post cold war international diplomacy.