‘A Few Good Men’ turns 30 and we still can’t handle the truth – Moneycontrol
‘A Few Good Men’ turns 30 and we still can’t handle the truth – Moneycontrol
In revisiting Aaron Sorkin’s legal thriller 30 years later, one observes that Cruise and Nicholson are top-notch, the plotting and themes still hold up, but some of the characterisation understandably hasn’t aged well.
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We were working on an assignment when one of us happened to say something along the lines of “handling the truth” and the next thing you know, we had spent 20 minutes re-enacting the entire climax — not just the main Kafee-Jessup showdown but even the interjections from relatively minor characters like opposing counsel Ross and Judge Randolph.
That’s the power of Aaron Sorkin’s crackling dialogue..
A Few Good Men was released on December 9, 1992.
The film, directed by Rob Reiner, was an adaptation of the play of the same name also written by Aaron Sorkin.
Starring Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, and a murderer’s row of recognisable character actors, the movie was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Picture.
The idea came about when Sorkin’s sister told him about a hazing case she was working on for the Navy.
The title came from a recruiting campaign for the United States Marine Corps, “We’re looking for a few good men.”.
Cruise was one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood in 1992 (not much has changed), coming off an Oscar nomination for Born on the Fourth of July and following up with the megahit John Grisham adaptation The Firm (1991).
Curiously enough, both characters are made fun of for being uncomfortable in boats despite being Naval officers..
There’s nothing I can say that hasn’t already been said about the movie, Sorkin’s dialogue, Nicholson’s Oscar-nominated performance, etc.
But it’s an interesting exercise to re-watch A Few Good Men in 2022 and see how it plays — given the times we live in, and the social and moral awareness we expect our art to reflect..
Reiner takes care to pepper the cast with black actors — the main accused Dawson, the judge, Luther from the newsstand, a healthy number of the jury, and even one of the non-testifying Airmen at the end.
The thing that really sticks out is the casual misogyny towards Moore’s Galloway, both from the ostensible good guys as well as the script itself.
Sorkin, an avowed admirer of screwball rom-coms from the ’30s and ’40s like Bringing Up Baby (1938) and His Girl Friday (1940), tries to transplant that back-and-forth style here but it seems stilted, and simply does not age well.
However, his script does Galloway no favours, saddling her with the only instance of lawyerly incompetence in the movie..
From a character standpoint, the 2022 version of the movie would flesh out Jessup’s character a bit more than the two-dimensional characterisation we get here.
A Jessup who believes so strongly in his leadership style and Code Reds, would not be so willing to let his soldiers be punished for following his orders.
That internal conflict between self-preservation and standing up for his principles would make for a much more interesting character.
Looking at Kaffee’s character from a 2022 lens, it’s possible that there’s a bit more than meets the eye.
He doesn’t have any girlfriends, is uninterested in the smart and attractive Jo Galloway, and his home doesn’t look like a frat boy’s pad.
A Few Good Men was among the first few stories that Sorkin wrote, and die-hard fans will be able to trace the genesis of various Sorkinisms — both in dialogue and tropes — that he likes to reuse.
Sorkin is surprisingly self-aware of some of his tics; a late scene in the movie has Kaffee making fun of Galloway for reciting her résumé to him, a Sorkinism that appears in his work even today..
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