Movie of the Week: A Few Good Men

  
    Movie of the Week (3/24/13-3/30/13): There are many courtroom dramas out there and many of them have been nominated for multiple Oscars. The thing about these courtroom dramas is that they have to be dialog driven, be able to create tension with not much camera movement, have a good director, and have great actors that display a lot of emotion and are capable of doing it. A Few Good Men has all of those aspects, which makes it one of the best movies of 1992.
    As I said, these movies need to be written very well and have great dialog. Screenwriter Aaron Sorkin, who got snubbed for Best Adapted Screenplay, wrote a wonderful script that creates so much tension at times, your hands are sweating. The courtroom scenes are obviously the best because that is all they do is talk and the dialog switches back and forth between each character so well that it is hard not to get bored. The thing that makes this movie special are the monologues that were written for the characters, they are so powerful and expressed with so much emotion that you want to go back and watch them again as soon as you finish them.
    But, without the proper director those scenes would probably turn out much different. Rob Reiner helps put Sorkin's screenplay on film. As I said, to make a good courtroom drama you need to be able to create a lot of tension with very little camera movement. Reiner does this in more of an old fashion way in that he uses multiple cameras and switches back and forth between characters when they speak with no special angles, just the classic straight shots. He also uses one camera with wide shots or the camera follows the characters around the room in several spots for a short time, he then zooms in slowly during the monologues, which creates the best tension in the film. There is not much camera movement and that is what creates the tension in the scenes.
    But, what is tension in scenes without great actors and actresses to create it for you. This film has an outstanding cast, there is Tom Cruise, Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, and I could go on and on. Tom Cruise does a fantastic job as a cocky Navy lawyer defending two privates who are accused of murder, but claim they followed orders. Demi Moore as another lawyer representing one of the privates being accused. Kevin Bacon plays a Marine on the other side of the courtroom trying to convict the privates and Kiefer Sutherland as a Marine put on the stand to testify whether or not he was responsible for what happened.
    But, the best role in the movie would have to be Jack Nicholson as Colonel Nathan Jessup. We already know that Nicholson is a great actor, but he took over the movie, with the few scenes he is in, whenever he was on screen. The amount of anger and emotion he displays when delivering his monologues and his now famous line, "You can't handle the truth," is just simply mind-boggling. With the power of wonderful acting, especially Jack Nicholson, Aaron Sorkin's amazing screenplay with fantastic monologues, and Rob Riener's direction this is one drama that will not be forgotten any time soon. 4/4 Stars.