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 RULES
OF ENGAGEMENT STEREOTYPES ARABS AND AMERICANS, TOO
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.
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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
NEW
WORKING PAPER AVAILABLE
A
paper presented at the recent Western Political Science Association
convention has been published as the fourteenth in the Political
Film Society's Working Paper Series:
Michael Krukones, Hollywood's Portrayal of the American
President in the 1930s: A Strong and Revered Leader
To obtain any of the fourteen papers, send a donation of $5
each to Political Film Society, PO Box 461267, Hollywood,
CA 90046.
CALL
FOR PAPERS AT CONFERENCE ON THE PRESIDENCY
Political
Film Society member Ernest Giglio (giglio@lycoming.edu)
currently seeks papers for a panel at a conference on American
presidents in film, scheduled for November 10-12 at the Reagan
Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. His deadline
is May 1.
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