Rules of Engagement
Rules of Engagement
R | 07 April 2000 (USA)
Rules of Engagement Trailers

A Marine Colonel is brought to court-martial after ordering his men to fire on demonstrators surrounding the American embassy in Yemen.

Reviews
2hotFeature one of my absolute favorites!
filippaberry84 I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.
Darin One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.
cjbarrett Should be viewed by anyone considering a career in the service. Great performances by a coupl of our best actors. Sadly the topic is an all too familiar one of the government selling out the men and women who serve it.
pancholi-kota This is a pre-9/11 film which raises questions on the rules of engagement in civilian/urban zones as well as combat/war fields.The backdrop is the a US Marines-led evacuation of the Yemen embassy which is surrounded by protesters and is facing sniper attacks.The conduct of Samuel Jackson,the colonel leading the operation is called into question .Its alleged that his blood-mindedness had resulted in the slaughter of 83 peaceful protesters.The director had Tommy lee jones at his disposal to make a superb courtroom drama out of it.But somehow the trial seems very low key and not engaging enough.Guy pearce,as the prosecution attorney makes a mockery of the whole show with his affected performance.Maybe he was trying to copy tom cruise's performance in A FEW GOOD MEN,but he didn't succeed.Even tommy lee jones seems surprisingly off colour .Samuel Jackson does well but not enough to save the flick.The film is doomed,especially in the post 9/11 era because the rules of engagement have changed,if not officially,at least on ground.One better appreciates under how much pressure do state forces operate versus the non-state actors.The margin for error is zero,and the opportunity costs are very high.Middle East is no longer given any benefit of doubt as far as restraint,democracy,fair play and lawful warfare are concerned.One knows it is global jihad one is fighting against,in which the only rule of engagement is elimination of suspected terrorists.The world has seen the destruction of twin towers,embassy attack in Benghazi,drone attacks,killing of bin laden,prolonged warfare in afganistan and Iraq,arab spring,Libyan uprising,Syrian civil war and continued existential crisis for Israel in this millennium.The script of the film rings hollow and premise seems weak when seen in 2017.The special forces need a lot of immunity in these times,and international law shud evolve accordingly.
davidhenriksen clearly a political movie that seeks to portrait all Arabs as potential terrorists, even the little girl. wonder what critics would have said if it had been a little Jewish girl being portrayed as a terrorist. probably would have been uproar. this however went unnoticed. the Israeli government couldn't have scripted the movie better themselves. an embarrassment to Samuel l. Jackson. ill be sure to research all his movies before watching more junk like this. written by the US army, says it all. cannot believe this junk was in movie theaters all over the world. should be banned. makes me sick to my stomach. three years after this pile of crap was released American soldiers invaded Iraq.
Trevor Mcinsley I cannot say I fully comprehend precisely what the writers were thinking... well, in fact it is just plain puzzling. They wanted to write a courtroom drama but when it came time to actually think of a point for the court case they apparently just drew a blank and decided to massacre a load of civilians for no conceivable reason.The scene is just... ridiculous. So ridiculous I simply gave up watching. Samuel L Jackson (why is it every character he plays is called 'Samuel L Jackson'?) clearly sees the gunmen are on the roof when they fly in. The marines decide the best way of dealing with this situation is to run about on top of the ramparts and give the enemy a nice little game of duck hunt... rather than say, returning fire. Even if they had some standing order not to fire I think this rather gets superseded when half your men have just been shot...Then when it comes time to engage Sam decides the best thing to do is to fire into a crowd of people throwing rocks as opposed to actually shooting the people shooting him... just... why? It seems there are genuinely a hundred other ways they could have had their civilian massacre plot short of just having the guy order his troops to pointless massacre them. He could have called in some inaccurate fire on a position, a building could have collapsed into the crowd from taking suppressive fire... even if he had just slipped whilst trying to throw a grenade it would have been more plausible. Ultimately I would have carried on watching it if this scene made the slightest bit of sense. If he had ordered his marines to fire on the snipers on the rooftops and had some of the women and children that were visibly clustered amongst them take some hits they still could have racked up the inordinate body count they so craved. Perhaps we could even see one or two rookie marines shoot into the crowd after mistaking a rock for incoming fire only for Sam to order them to stop. The prosecution would then be that of a looking for a scapegoat to avoid an international incident and the audience would be on the side of the war veteran defendant.I gave up before the court case even started because frankly it would have been more plausible if they were trying to sue a unicorn from space for causing World War Three...I am annoyed that I watched the first half hour of preamble in what looked to be a good film with a good cast only to find that the writer is a goddamn retard.