Posted on 09/07/2005 1:30:22 PM PDT by CreviceTool
Wrong Time for Patriotism By Nicholas de Jongh, Evening Standard
There could hardly be a less appropriate time for a London staging of Aaron Sorkin's devoutly patriotic American courtroom thriller, A Few Good Men.
The famous film version, based on Sorkin's original play, with Jack Nicholson artfully stealing the thunder from Tom Cruise in the last reel, seductively beat the drum for the US military. I am afraid that watching the stage version now, though, is like being drenched in American cultural whitewash.
Sorkin delivers a soothing message about America's ability to hang on to justice and control its armed forces, thanks to Rob Lowe's Daniel Kaffee, a lawyer in the lion's den of a court martial.
There this advocate is, fighting for two young marines accused of murder, exposing corruption and cover-ups in Guantanamo Bay's Marine Corps.
Yet in real life it is less than a year since American soldiers were discovered torturing prisoners being held without trial in Guantanamo. And who, Tony Blair apart, now speaks of the American military in Iraq as a civilising force?
A Few Good Men is not, anyway, cemented with enough thrills, developments or discoveries to keep the structure holding firm.
It rests precariously on the slight shoulders of Rob Lowe's pretty-boy lawyer, whose androgynous, chocolate-box good looks and frail appearance makes you imagine Kaffee might have suffered sexual bullying in the navy.
Lowe's Daniel is convinced Dawson and Downey, charged with killing a fellow marine who secretly blew the whistle on military misbehaviour, are simple fall guys: could not some senior man have given the secret, "code red" command - an instruction to rough up a marine?
Suranne Jones's JoAnne, briskly at Daniel's side, supplies legal and emotional support. The truth dribbles out slowly, save for one outburst.
A Few Good Men has too few good scenes of dramatics, though Sorkin has a nice line in wry humour. The climactic courtroom tussling and taunting, the battle of nerves and words in which Lowe's Daniel tricks Jack Ellis's testy Colonel Jessep, misses the right wire sense of tension and danger.
Lowe, all cool, neat and slight, does not quite have the kind of charismatic stage personality that compels you to keep an eye on the selfconfident, thrusting lawyer.
Instead he interestingly makes the character more uncertain, more worried about legal victory than Cruise cared to. Ellis's Colonel - who ought have all the menace of a snake poised to strike - does not muster enough pugilism or silky malice.
A remarkable, speedy production by David Esbjornson basks in tension, dynamism and atmospherics. The sounds of helicopters and chanting marines recur.
Michael Pavelka's splendid, subtle set design - mobile metal screens and backcloths of barbed wire, watchtowers and palm trees - allows rapid scene changes. The scramble from military courtroom to abseiling marines takes no time at all.
Esbjornson catches and conveys the rigidities of a world where men behave like machines: Michael Wildman and Nick Court as the accused marines sound impressively dehumanised.
John Barrowman as the counsel expected to get them behind bars and Jones's JoAnne efficiently keep their own emotions under wraps.
Finally, though, A Few Good Men is just too patriotic to be good. It makes it seem that there is nothing much wrong in the American military that luck and a real star lawyer cannot put right.
If the film version was accurate to the original play it's fairly respectful of the Marines. The two accused Marines are the most honorable characters.
I've always felt that ARITS was the prototype for a lot of Norman Lear's work for better or worse.
I fear for the people of Britain when, not if, they have to face down another Hitler. They just might give up like the dims here.I pray not as I am named after my uncle that died in the RAF during WWII.
The British don't love the USA; they don't even love their own country.
If you so much as wave a British flag in London they consider you to be a fanatic.
If you yell, "God bless Britannia!", they'd probably haul you off to a mental institution.
Plaese click here...Tribes by Bill Whittle...for a dose of reality... }^)
Plaese click here...Tribes by Bill Whittle...for a dose of reality... }^)
It's all Bush's fault ~ Bump!
It's funny your face is familiar.
Don't remember your name,
But I do remember your sign.
What garbage. Both the play and movie are fairly unpatriotic. They show the Marines as fanatics and their leader as a liar and egomaniac.
For a patriotic alternative check out "Rules of Engagement", starring Tommy Lee Jones (I know ALGORE's roomie) and Samual L. Jackson.
With all due respect, sir, go blow it out your... 
Good Times was a spinoff of Maude which was a spinoff of All In the Family - and Good Times was nothing but a sitcom version of A Raisin in the Sun.
You repeat a lie often enough and two things will happen - the stupid will come to believe it and everybody else will know you're an idiot.
It rests precariously on the slight shoulders of Rob Lowe's pretty-boy lawyer, whose androgynous, chocolate-box good looks and frail appearance makes you imagine Kaffee might have suffered sexual bullying in the navy.I don't imagine any such thing, but I'm hardly surprised Nicolas does.
While it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that,
an' "Tommy, fall be'ind,"
But it's "Please to walk in front, sir,"
when there's trouble in the wind,
There's trouble in the wind, my boys,
there's trouble in the wind,
O it's "Please to walk in front, sir,"
when there's trouble in the wind.
Kipling....
How delightful! All of us needed a break from the tragedy in the Gulf States to hear what what some dainty girly man posing as a Euro-trash drama critic has to about some play.
Can we also pin this one on our President Bush while we're at it?
For a leftist artsy-fartsy type, Brit or American or anything - an American cultural whitewash must be an awful experience. The phrase just makes me want to re-read Tom Sawyer for some reason.
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