Enjoyable Fantasy

Rating: 7/10 (19 June 2000)

RULES OF ENGAGEMENT is a terrifically enjoyable fantasy of the way things ought to work in Washington. Samuel Jackson plays a marine colonel accused of mass murder in a sorta "reverse Waco" assault on Yemeni demonstrators. Tommy Lee Jones plays Jackson's attorney, a marine almost broken by an ambush which killed the rest of his men and left him maimed. An ambush HE survived only because Jackson violated the Geneva convention and murdered one of his prisoners. Guy Pearce does a terrific job as the prosecuting attorney. In fact, all the performances are solid. WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD. What detracts is the revelation in the middle of the film that Jackson is actually innocent and will be convicted only because the National Security Advisor withholds a key piece of evidence (a video tape). This missing tape becomes the linchpin of Lee's defense of Jackson and leads to Jackson's acquittal and the eventual prosecution of the National Security Advisor. Anyone familiar with the last eight years of the Clinton Administration (particularly the atrocity at Waco) knows Washington doesn't work this way. The national media would have have crucified Jackson, and the military jury would have cowered and convicted.
Anyway, RULES OF ENGAGEMENT is an enjoyable fantasy, as far as it goes.