The
imperatives of foreign policy clash with the desires for justice
in Rules of Engagement, directed by William
Friedkin from a story by former Navy Secretary James Webb,
whose nostalgia for the Cold War appears unquenched. In 1968,
during a battle in a Vietnamese jungle, Terry L. Childers
(played by Samuel L. Jackson) saves the life of Hayes Hodges
(played by Tommy Lee Jones). Fast forward to 1994, when Hodges
retires from the Marines as a Colonel, presumably mandatorily
(because he did not distinguish himself enough to be promoted
to the rank of general), but not before getting a law degree
at Georgetown and becoming a mediocre lawyer who most enjoys
trout fishing. Childers, a colonel, comes to the retirement
ceremony from his duty station, the aircraft carrier Kittyhawk
in the Indian Ocean. When he returns to the Indian Ocean,
a peaceful demonstration outside the unguarded American Embassy
in San`a, Yemen, so intensifies that U.S. Ambassador Mourain
(played by Ben Kingsley) calls for Marines to provide protection
and, if needed, evacuation. Childers is assigned to lead a
detachment of Marines to San`a (actually, a set constructed
in Morocco). Upon arrival, the embassy is being assaulted
by snipers from a building opposite the embassy and by firebombers
from below. While the ambassador and his family are rescued,
three Marines are killed by snipers; the rest are so clumsily
deployed that they are pinned down by sniperfire and in danger
of being massacred. Childers, on observing rifles aimed at
the embassy from the front row of the demonstrators, orders
the second in command to wipe out the opposing firepower.
However, the deputy orders his men to shoot at the crowd,
resulting in civilian casualties consisting of 83 deaths and
about 100 injured, while the armed Yemeni disappear with their
weapons. The world press then reports a massacre of peaceful
demonstrators by trigger-happy Marines, and National Security
Adviser William Sokal (played by Bruce Greenwood) demands
a scapegoat so that relations with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and
other friendly Arab governments will not be jeopardized. Sokal
tries to absolve the U.S. government of culpability by destroying
an exculpatory tape from an embassy surveillance camera and
suborning perjury from the American ambassador. When a court
martial convenes at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, Childers
selects Hodges as his attorney to plead a supposedly hopeless
case in which there is no rebuttal evidence. The tagline states,
"A hero should never have to stand alone." Friedkin's longstanding
fascination with the "thin line" between criminality and heroism
is played out in the court-room in regard to whether Childers
violated the Marines' "rules of engagement." Despite amateurish
witness interrogation and overdramatic summary arguments on
both sides, the inevitable happy ending involves a compromise
in which Childers is found guilty of the lesser of three charges.
Childers leaves the Marines honorably, while Sokal and Mourain
are convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury, respectively.
Consequences of the compromise for American foreign policy,
however, are not explained, as if to imply that international
resentment over American misconduct is easily assuaged by
the dispensing of American justice. Although the ending has
already inspired Marines and other rednecks in the audience
to leave the moviehouse feeling that those fanatical Arabs
got what they deserved, it is unlikely that Rules of
Engagement will play well outside the United States,
where the film is already seen as yet another tiresome example
of American arrogance, ethnocentrism, and irresponsibility.
MH
I
want to comment on this film
