Aaron Sorkin is a damn genius up there with J.J. Abrams, Nick Hornby and the inventor of chicken noodle soup. On seeing that he was the mastermind behind A Few Good Men, the bar raised way the fuck high even with Tom Cruise involved…but it was before Scientology came into the mix so I didn't even have to roll my eyes in disgust when "The World's Safest Razzie Award Bet" overacted over nothing 'cause this came out at a point where he was still discovering how fucking annoying he could be. Thankfully, the writer of The West Wing, SportsNight, The Social Network, and Moneyball is gifted enough to surpass expectations even under such dire circumstances, because I enjoyed the ever-loving shit out of this movie.
A Few Good Men is a military law drama like Rules of Engagement or Basic (without the mental rape at the end) where a crime is committed and it's up to the lawyers to investigate what the fuck is really going on because that's what lawyers do as apparently soldiers are the kinds of people where honor and integrity take a back seat to "dragging the plot out a little bit." In this case however, I'm willing to accept that as the cast of characters were a lot of fun to listen to for two and a half hours, each with their own demons and desires and charms that actually made for a nice courtroom carnival in the end.
Focusing around the trial of two marines accused of murder for inflicting "unofficial" punishment on a fellow marine and having him die during it, Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) of the Navy/Marines/Army/Whatever-is-the-most-offensive-at-the-time, must defend these tools in what seems like an open and shut case while tolerating ridicule from people who know he tends to flock towards plea bargains instead of stepping foot in a courtroom. As the case and investigation gets more intense, A Few Good Men takes dangerous journeys down military ethics policies, their role in society and what they should be allowed to get away with for the sake of protecting our country, and the true definition of honor and does so in a somewhat preachy way, but not with the uncomfortable Robert Redford kind of cheap shots (See Lions for Lambs Review. Don't see Lions for Lambs. It sucks).
The awesome thing about this movie is it never got boring, even during that awkward time in courtroom dramas where the whole frame of the puzzle was completed and everyone just sat staring at a pile of middle pieces praying that they just assembled themselves. Aaron Sorkin's characters had enough depth to them where the discomfort led to a pleasant insanity on the screen which stayed on topic and helped pace the movie well. I was pleasantly surprised at Demi Moore's sternness and Tom Cruise's dysfunction (though didn't realize it would become a fucking way of life for him) and how well it worked together to create intelligent debates and brainstorming banter. It's the kind of dialogue that I wish Kevin Smith were capable of where it didn't constantly steer itself in the direction of a joke that may or may not actually work but you feel you have to laugh because you already invested so much time in it. Kind of like a sentence in The BackLOG…
Anyway, the only thing that really brought this movie down was despite how much fun it was to listen to, it wasn't easy to get lost in and it really started to feel and ache like a two and a half hour movie. Perhaps that's just me being an asshole but I wasn't a fan of a case that kept building up strong arguments and finally said "fuck it all, let's just make the respectable guy go fucking insane so we can insta-win." It just seemed a bit lazy to me, but that's hardly enough to really tear this down.
No matter how I look at it though, I really enjoyed this movie. I was surprised at how smart it was and at the same time, how funny it was. Damn it, I was actually laughing through a lot of it, another classic Aaron Sorkin movie, the master of the Dramady, the seriousness and lightheartedness was seamless and never felt forced. Like most comedies that write the jokes before the situation, the humor in A Few Good Men felt natural and fitting.
I knew this would be good, but A Few Good Men exceeded that expectation with flying colors and gets a refreshing 9 dustbusters out of 10 from me.
Couldn't agree more on every count. The chemistry between the major players is great, and seeing Kevin Bacon and Noah Wylie in these types of roles was a nice change of pace.
ReplyDeleteBut the king of this movie is Sorkin. He wrote one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time, "The American President", one of my favorite TV shows of all time, "The West Wing", and one of my favorite Tom Hanks' films, "Charlie Wilson's War." I can't wait to see what he does next.