A Few Good Men
Spoilers for A Few Good Men to follow.
A Few Good Men is the rare Tom Cruise movie that I’ve only seen once or twice (well over 20 years ago to boot). Being the Cruise fanatic that I am, you KNOW I bought that shit on 4K anyway. I’m glad to say that this is Classic Cruise, with his movie star charisma aided by a VERY Aaron Sorkin script, director Rob Reiner (who was finishing up a hell of a hot streak) and a supporting cast that includes Jack Nicholson, Demi Moore, Kevin Bacon, Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Pollack, J.T. Walsh (!), Christopher Guest (!) and a blink and you’ll miss them Cuba Gooding Jr. and Noah Wyle. This flick is a Movie with a capital M. Speeches, Montages and people chasing down other people in the rain is what we’re talking about here, people. All that and it’s courtroom drama, too. No wonder this flick is a cornerstone of 90s cinema.
A Few Good Men is peak Cruise, with the actor still young enough to play boy-ish but also seasoned enough to go toe to toe with Jack. Seriously, the amount of swagger this guy has is absurd. Here, he plays a hot shot Naval lawyer (!) who closes cases so fast he’s never actually tried a case in court, so when he is assigned a bombshell case that potentially goes right to the top (Nicholson’s Colonel Jessup), Cruise has to decide whether he is as good as he, and everyone else, thinks he is. Oh, did I mention that his character’s Dad was a legendary Naval lawyer whose shadow Cruise has been trying to get out of his whole career? Cause that’s all there, too, and Cruise kills it. His scene with Nicholson in the courtroom was iconic then and it still plays to this day. Not just that one exchange either, but the entire scene is perfectly executed on every level.
Speaking of Nicholson, the actor was only on set for 10 days, and only even appears in four scenes total (though his final scene runs almost 20 minutes, to be fair), but that only speaks to his greatness. His presence looms over the entire picture and rightly so. Perfect casting.
As I mentioned earlier, director Rob Reiner was on a hot streak. Prior to this he had directed Stand By Me, The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally… and Misery all in a row. Reiner extended his streak with A Few Good Men, as he crafts a genuinely tense thriller with pin point accuracy. And even though some of the big name stars only appear for a few minutes each, he makes sure that each one of them delivers the goods, only making their small roles all the more memorable.
Sorkin’s script is efficient and entertaining (though it can sometimes be weird to see Cruise slinging those Sorkin one-liners), and while it is sometimes very obvious this was based on a play (also by Sorkin), the writer wisely focuses on the characters, making that a non-issue. I would also be remiss if I didn’t give thanks to Sorkin for having Cruise say lines like “FUCK YOU, HAROLD!” or Jack scream “I’m gonna rip out your eyes and piss on your dead skull!! YOU FUCKED WITH THE WRONG MARINE!” Just incredible.
For a movie that is VERY 90s, the only thing that truly stands out as dated is the score by Marc Shaiman. Shaiman is an wonderful composer, having done the scores for films like The Addams Family, Sleepless In Seattle and even South Park: Bigger, Longer and Uncut, but his style simply does not mesh well with the courtroom drama at all. Thankfully, this is a minor issue (the movie is all about the acting and dialogue), but one worth mentioning.
A Few Good Men was a bit of a turning point in Cruise’s career, too. After the blockbuster success of Top Gun, the Oscar winning Rain Man and Born on the Fourth of July (for which he received his first Oscar nomination), Cruise starred in Days of Thunder and Far & Away, both of which greatly disappointed at the box office (particularly when compared to his previous hits). If A Few Good Men hadn’t been a hit, well, that could’ve been it for Mr. Cruise.
But don’t worry, the movie made $141 million at the domestic box office and $243 million worldwide and was actually the first of five $100 million dollar grossing movies in a row for the star, a feat he would later top in the 2000s with seven $100 million grossing movies in a row. The GOAT gonna GOAT.