A Few Good Men (1992)

It’s not been deliberate, but I seem to have found myself watching Tom Cruise films a lot recently. This one, famous for Jack Nicholson’s “You can’t handle the truth!” line, (a performance that he was Oscar nominated for) had escaped me until now. Aaron Sorkin is a reliable pair of hands to trust with a script with, and his back and forth dialogue style is put to great effect in a story about Tom Cruise’s lawyer assigned to defend two U.S Marines accused of murdering a fellow soldier. The performances are very solid (as you’d probably expect from a cast including Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland and Kevin Bacon amongst others) and for me A Few Good Men is a much more engrossing courtroom drama than Sorkin’s recent The Trial Of The Chicago Seven (2020). The film is based on Sorkin’s 1989 play, which probably helps proceedings; although it’s no mean feat adjusting a theater production to a cinematic screenplay (Denzel Washington’s 2016 film adaptation of the play ‘Fences’ is a particularly dull recent example). You have no idea what the outcome of the trial is going to be, and even at the end of the film Sorkin has given you a shrewd idea of the mindset it takes to be a marine, the final sequence proving both the positive and negatives of such a job. It might not be the masterpiece that some claim but A Few Good Men is a thoroughly engaging courtroom drama with excellent performances from all involved, keeping you gripped from the outset. 7.7/10