Rules of Engagement

There's no ducking the issue: "Rules of Engagement" is a testosterone festival. No sympathetic female characters intrude on the drama, everyone who does not wear a military uniform is a horrible pantywaist, and, in one scene, Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson — best friends who fought together in 'Nam and who would die for each other — communicate their innermost feelings about their relationship by beating the crap out of each other for five solid minutes. If you do not have a Y chromosome, or you do not have a deep empathy for those who do, you will not enjoy this movie.

If you can get past the masculinity, though, you'll find an interesting movie. William Friedkin, the man who gave us "The French Connection" and "The Exorcist," has made the first decent military courtroom drama since "A Few Good Men." But unlike that film, "Rules of Engagement" knows about shades of rightness other than black and white. Though the outcome will be clear to veteran moviegoers from the start of the film, just as it was in "A Few Good Men," Friedkin embraces ambiguity. He explores moral choices and their impact. He withholds evidence not only from the characters but from us, so that we have to make our own judgments about what has happened for much of the film. He asks us to make choices, even as the film is doing so. The script of the film is unambiguously pro-military, but Friedkin's direction makes it less sure and more interesting than that.

Friedkin's direction also takes the film from the entertaining-pap level of "A Few Good Men" to something higher. He is a wonderfully skilled director, a master at using restraint to achieve shattering emotional impact. Action scenes flow freely and logically with Friedkin at the helm, so that tragedies happen in real time and are not spelled out for the viewer. Friedkin gives his actors space to create characters (well, most of them), and positions his camera unobtrusively to achieve the greatest impact. Friedkin's art conceals art, never pushing his audience's emotional buttons and always treating the audience like a group of intelligent adults. Frankly, it's quite refreshing.

However, regardless of directorial niceties, this movie ain't gonna move without charismatic men shooting at people, staring off into space with smoldering eyes, and yelling at each other. Fortunately, this movie has those men in spades. Samuel L. Jackson, of course, is our modern master of aggrieved honor and intimidating stares. His character may be one-dimensional, but he is a kind of one-dimensional man we all know in real life: someone who has given his life up to his work, and now may pay a terrible price for trying to do his job. Plus, when Samuel L. Jackson yells, it really does sound as if the world is coming to an end, and that's all this movie really needs out of Samuel L. Jackson.

Tommy Lee Jones has a much more interesting character. Thankfully, he is not asked to play the Invincible Cop he has been playing for about five years, and his performance here serves as a reminder of why people still think Tommy Lee Jones is a good actor. He is frail, imperfect, emotional and sometimes weak. His has been something of a wasted life, in his own eyes. He does not know if he can defend Jackson; he's not a very good lawyer, by his own admission. Yet through the haze of shattered dreams and self-doubt that surrounds him, he recognizes that loyalty, honor and duty compel him to pull himself together and kick some courtroom butt. When Jackson asks Jones to defend him, Jones accepts. When Jones starts to believe that Jackson is guilty, he still defends him. And when Jones, finally suspecting the plot viewers have been made aware of a long time ago, threatens the National Security Advisor with the question "Have you ever had a pissed-off Marine on your ass?", you know that Jones's sheer manly energy will crush the NSA like the roach he is. Jones makes his character seem believable and true.

The film isn't perfect by any means; its explicit demonization of the left wing seems unnecessary, and the script makes Guy Pearce's prosecuting Marine is too annoying for words. Yet here we have a guy film which yet achieves emotion without sentimentality, which isn't afraid to look at two sides of a story, and which dares to end on a true-sounding quiet note rather than one last artificially ignited courtroom flare-up. Oddly enough, these qualities make the film even more manly. A nuanced voyage into Testosterone Country might not be everyone's idea of a dream vacation, but if it sounds intriguing, "Rules of Engagement" won't disappoint.

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