11 - "A Few Good Men" (1992)

     (This one's for you Regenia!!) There's always room on the list for a good courtroom drama. I said previously in my review of Jerry Maguire that when he is on his A game, Tom Cruise can be a fabulous actor. While he is great in that film, I think he is at his best here. But he is not alone. Jack Nicholson and Demi Moore give standout performances as well. Cruise is Lt. Daniel Kaffee, a lawyer for U.S. Navy who has a record of plea bargaining cases and has never actually been to trial. Because of this, he is surprised when he is assigned the case of two U.S. Marines, Lance Cpl. Harold W. Dawson (Wolfgang Bodison) and Pfc. Louden Downey (James Marshall), who are accused of murdering a third marine. Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore) and Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak) are assigned to assist Kaffee with the case. The trio head to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, where the incident took place. There they meet a trio of Marines who appear to know more than they originally let one. Col. Nathan Jessep (Jack Nicholson) runs Guantanamo Bay with an iron fist. It isn't long before Kaffee's team believes the murder may have been as the result of a "code red", which means the two accused men were ordered to do what they did. Kaffee wants to plea bargain the case down but the two accused men refuse to say they are guilty. This forces Kaffee into the courtroom to face off with the Marines. A Few Good Men is heavy on dialogue but the screenplay by Aaron Sorkin, based on a play he wrote, is brilliant and it never gets bogged down in legalese. We know the film is heading to a dramatic confrontation between Cruise and Nicholson, and when it gets to that point, it doesn't fail to deliver. The "YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!" monologue is intense and features Nicholson at his best. If you've ever passed on this movie for any reason, do yourself a favor and catch it. The acting and the script are top notch and not to be missed.