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Rules of Engagement

93 statements
17 feature instances
10 referencing feature instances

Rules of Engagement	type	TVTItem
Rules of Engagement	label	Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement	page	RulesOfEngagement
Rules of Engagement	comment	Rules of Engagement is a 2000 military legal thriller directed by William Friedkin, starring Samuel L. Jackson as USMC Colonel Terry Childers, a Marine Officer charged with ordering the massacre of civilians protesting outside an embassy, and Tommy Lee Jones as USMC Colonel Hayes Hodges, a JAG lawyer and old friend of Childers, who is defending him against the charges.Co-stars Bruce Greenwood, Guy Pearce, Blair Underwood, Ben Kingsley, and Anne Archer.
Rules of Engagement	fetched	2023-09-03T10:28:53Z
Rules of Engagement	parsed	2023-09-03T10:28:53Z
Rules of Engagement	isPartOf	DBTropes
Rules of Engagement / int_19d06ef7	type	A Father to His Men
Rules of Engagement / int_19d06ef7	comment	A Father to His Men: Colonel Childers DOES NOT take it lightly when his men are killed (which is the main reason he gives the order to fire on the crowd) and during his bout with Major Biggs he unapologetically states that he wasn’t going to stand by and see another one of his Marines die just to appease the likes of men like Biggs.
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Rules of Engagement / int_3322dd48	type	Hollywood Law
Rules of Engagement / int_3322dd48	comment	Hollywood Law: Sokal is worried about political pressure from other countries about the internationally publicized "slaughter of innocent civilians in Yemen", so he hides the one piece of evidence that would exonerate Col. Childers: a video tape of the crowd initiating contact with the Marines. Sokal does this as a means of "throwing Childers under the bus". The problem with that is that not only would that tape reveal that Col. Childers was innocent and performed his duty admirably, but it would remove all political pressure from the US - thus removing the reason why Sokal hid the tape in the first place. Couple that with the evidence presented in the courts-martial that proved Col. Childers innocent, and, therefore, would have been returned to active duty. In short, Sokal helped propagate the very problem he was trying to solve: political pressure against the US, that would cause embassies to be removed around the world.
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Rules of Engagement / int_33f095a8	type	Jaded Washout
Rules of Engagement / int_33f095a8	comment	Jaded Washout: Hodges is an interesting case. The description of him states that he returned from a brutal battle in Vietnam and “became a cynic” graduating 67th in his law school class at Georgetown Lawnote which is actually quite good, because the school is prestigious and each graduating class is made up of several hundred students, has lost more cases than he won, and is two weeks from retirement. But he made Colonel, implying a highly successful career as a JAG attorney, and is shown to be well-liked by other marines during his retirement party.
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Rules of Engagement / int_3fe2b13f	type	Ungrateful Bastard
Rules of Engagement / int_3fe2b13f	comment	Ungrateful Bastard: Played with in the case of Ambassador Mourain, who is genuinely grateful for Childers' saving his and his family's life, and initially aghast at the idea of scapegoating Childers for the incident. However, when threatened with being himself scapegoated instead, he chooses to put his own career first.
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Rules of Engagement / int_40cc0c7e	type	Bittersweet Ending
Rules of Engagement / int_40cc0c7e	comment	Bittersweet Ending: As Hodges notes in his closing statement, Childers' career in the military will be over regardless, with the only difference being whether he's found innocent (and thus gets an honorable discharge), or guilty (and thus gets jail time). In the end, Childers does get found guilty of a breach of the peace, but acquitted on all other charges — and presumably he got a slap on the wrist for the breach of the peace charge, seeing how the epilogue confirms he was honorably discharged.
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Rules of Engagement / int_43c5a4b7	type	Court-martialed
Rules of Engagement / int_43c5a4b7	comment	Court-martialed: Childers' being court-martialled for firing into a crowd of supposedly unarmed civilians forms the basis of the second half of the movie.
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Rules of Engagement / int_77414bc2	type	Action Prologue
Rules of Engagement / int_77414bc2	comment	Action Prologue: Two of them; the first is a flashback to the Vietnam War, and the second is the incident in Yemen which ends up leading to Childers' court martial.
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Rules of Engagement / int_7eebe99c	type	The Alcoholic
Rules of Engagement / int_7eebe99c	comment	The Alcoholic: Colonel Hodges, who has mostly managed to kick the habit by the time the movie's events get underway, but relapses hard after discovering exactly how hopeless Childers' case appears to be.
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Rules of Engagement / int_8767b1f3	type	Black-and-Gray Morality
Rules of Engagement / int_8767b1f3	comment	Black-and-Gray Morality: Sokal is clearly in the wrong by suppressing evidence and trying to throw Childers under the bus, but Childers himself is no saint, having executed a POW in Vietnam and ordered his men to open fire on a crowd of civilians in Yemen. However, Childers was at least trying to save the lives of the men under his command, while Sokal can't claim any such mitigation.
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Rules of Engagement / int_89434320	type	Protagonist-Centered Morality
Rules of Engagement / int_89434320	comment	Protagonist-Centered Morality: As the film is told from the perspective of the American military, the massacre of the Yemeni civilians is grossly overlooked and deemed collateral damage, simply because our protagonist followed the rules of engagement.
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Rules of Engagement / int_a32dcd7f	type	Desk Jockey
Rules of Engagement / int_a32dcd7f	comment	Desk Jockey: After serving as a lieutenant in Vietnam and being wounded in action, Hayes Hodges stayed in the Marines and spent 28 years as a JAG officer, rising to the rank of colonel.
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Rules of Engagement / int_b6c6e9ed	type	Violence Is Disturbing
Rules of Engagement / int_b6c6e9ed	comment	Violence Is Disturbing: The shooting of the crowd is depicted very realistically, with quick shots of people spitting up black blood. It is not glamorised or celebrated.
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Rules of Engagement / int_b77808f2	type	"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue
Rules of Engagement / int_b77808f2	comment	"Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: After the trial ends, captions reveal that while Childers settled into retirement, Sokal was tried and jailed for obstruction of evidence, Mourain was convicted of perjury and ejected from the diplomatic corps.
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Rules of Engagement / int_bc00493f	type	Precision F-Strike
Rules of Engagement / int_bc00493f	comment	Precision F-Strike: WASTE THE MOTHERFUCKERS!! As uttered by Samuel L. Jackson himself when ordering his unit to fire into the crowd. Unfortunately for Childers, it also ends up being a Precision F-Strike when Biggs brings it up during the court martial.
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Rules of Engagement / int_cd23ee7d	type	Colonel Badass
Rules of Engagement / int_cd23ee7d	comment	Colonel Badass: Childers is a highly decorated marine with a distinguished record of service spanning over three decades. Hodges, not so much, either in terms of combat ability (with him suffering a Game-Breaking Injury years before he achieved that rank) or lawyerly skill.
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Rules of Engagement / int_dc8ba6d5	type	The Scapegoat
Rules of Engagement / int_dc8ba6d5	comment	The Scapegoat: As a result of the bad press from the deaths of the Yemeni crowd, Sokal tries to turn Childers into this, and threatens Mourain with being made the scapegoat himself if he doesn't help take Childers down.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

RulesofEngagement	sameAs	Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement	hasFeature	California Doubling / int_7e4a4bd3
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Rules of Engagement	hasFeature	Is That a Threat? / int_7e4a4bd3
Rules of Engagement	hasFeature	Post-Injury Desk Job / int_7e4a4bd3
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Rules of Engagement	hasFeature	"Rashomon"-Style / int_7e4a4bd3
Rules of Engagement	hasFeature	The Dog Shot First / int_7e4a4bd3

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