Rules of Engagement (2000)

Excellent but underrated film

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Well this movie is 16 years old now, and I hadn't watched it in several years until today. Great casting Tommy Lee Jones performance was one of his best, Samuel L Jackson was very convincing in his role as Col Terry Childers as well. I'm no war buff, heck I really don't like war movies to be quite honest. So inaccuracies in the movie DO NOT bother me. If you're looking for historically correct was movies, may I suggest a documentary or some actual footage of a real battle. If you're looking for a good movie, this is it. Quite a bit on the vulgar language side, so not a good movie to sit and watch with the kids or your preacher. So just sit back, grab a cold one and some popcorn or pretzels and enjoy the Show.

Rules of Engagement, directed by the great William Friedkin, is a great good, tense thriller. This movie happens to have two film genres working for it. The first half of the film is a war film and the second half is a tense courtroom drama which is very well-made despite many clichés we usually see in courtroom films. Also, this film has two very hard-working actors going for it: Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson.This film is about a former Vietnam soldier who is asked to evacuate an American ambassador from Yemen but while he is doing that, all hell breaks loose. This soldier when he gets back home, recruits his friend whose life he saved in Vietnam to be his lawyer, so he can prove his innocence showing that he did not shoot into a crowd of unarmed civilians.Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson are two of the most respected actors in the business today. They do very well in this film and with their abilities, they seemed liked they coasted through this film. They have very good chemistry working together. I also liked Guy Pearce as the prosecutor because he is also a well-respected actor. I wanted to see more of Ben Kingsley and Anne Archer because they were the plot holes of the film. There was one scene involving Jones and Archer where Jones ask her to be a witness, but nothing comes from that. That is the only problem I had with this movie.Overall, this is quite a tense film especially the latter part of it. This movie has many clichés but if they are filmed well, then they usually work. The early war scenes in both Vietnam and Yemen are action-packed. This is a film that relates to government corruption and the military style of today's world. I rate this film 9/10.

I cannot say I fully comprehend precisely what the writers were thinking... well, in fact it is just plain puzzling. They wanted to write a courtroom drama but when it came time to actually think of a point for the court case they apparently just drew a blank and decided to massacre a load of civilians for no conceivable reason.The scene is just... ridiculous. So ridiculous I simply gave up watching. Samuel L Jackson (why is it every character he plays is called 'Samuel L Jackson'?) clearly sees the gunmen are on the roof when they fly in. The marines decide the best way of dealing with this situation is to run about on top of the ramparts and give the enemy a nice little game of duck hunt... rather than say, returning fire. Even if they had some standing order not to fire I think this rather gets superseded when half your men have just been shot...Then when it comes time to engage Sam decides the best thing to do is to fire into a crowd of people throwing rocks as opposed to actually shooting the people shooting him... just... why? It seems there are genuinely a hundred other ways they could have had their civilian massacre plot short of just having the guy order his troops to pointless massacre them. He could have called in some inaccurate fire on a position, a building could have collapsed into the crowd from taking suppressive fire... even if he had just slipped whilst trying to throw a grenade it would have been more plausible. Ultimately I would have carried on watching it if this scene made the slightest bit of sense. If he had ordered his marines to fire on the snipers on the rooftops and had some of the women and children that were visibly clustered amongst them take some hits they still could have racked up the inordinate body count they so craved. Perhaps we could even see one or two rookie marines shoot into the crowd after mistaking a rock for incoming fire only for Sam to order them to stop. The prosecution would then be that of a looking for a scapegoat to avoid an international incident and the audience would be on the side of the war veteran defendant.I gave up before the court case even started because frankly it would have been more plausible if they were trying to sue a unicorn from space for causing World War Three...I am annoyed that I watched the first half hour of preamble in what looked to be a good film with a good cast only to find that the writer is a goddamn retard.

A military action / courtroom drama combo platter that promises to pay special attention to the thin gray line separating morality and duty for occupying troops. It knows how to best use its stars - Tommy Lee Jones gets plenty of time to chew screen as a grizzled retiring Marine attorney, while Sam Jackson is given free reign to scream and shout both on and off the battlefield - but is somewhat less sure how to arrive at the conclusion it wants to leave us with. A forced attempt to cram an evil mastermind into the fray disagrees with the otherwise-universal theme that there is no black and white picture in a situation as difficult and politically charged as this one, and that's not the only scene that should have been shown the cutting room floor. Despite a few heated exchanges between Jones and the prosecuting attorney (a fiery turn by Guy Pearce), it's a great load of topical potential that never amounts to more than a weak fizzle and a sudden, puzzling jury decision.