A Few Good Men  ★★★½

“YOU can’t handle the truth.”

Those five words are some of the most quoted in cinema history and come from the snarling mouth of US Marine Corp Colonel Nathan R. Jessup, played by the great Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men.

The highly-entertaining 1992 legal drama builds to a 15-minute edge-of-the-seat confrontation between Nicholson’s supreme alpha male and Tom Cruise’s brash novice lawyer Lieutenant (junior grade) Daniel Kaffee who dares to publicly question Jessup’s truth, standing and authority.

Cruise’s character and two other lawyers, played by Demi Moore and Kevin Pollack, are defending two Marines charged with the murder of a colleague at the Guantanomo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, later to go down in history for the actual war crimes committed there.

The lawyers believe the two marines were following the orders of their superiors in dealing out punishment that goes too far, leading to the death.

Jessup thinks he and the Marine Corp in general, is safe from prosecution due to the cocde of honour and loyalty that dictates life and career. He is backed by his equally arrogant second-in-charge, played with equal relish by Kiefer Sutherland.

While the script is strong, the performances are the main attractions in this film with Cruise is fine form and Nicholson at his scene-stealing best.

A Few Good Men ended up grossing six times its budget and being nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, and provided boost for its two main creatives.

Director Rob Reiner is mostly known for comedies like When Harry Met Sally and The Process Bride, but Misery in ’92 and A Few Good Men showed there were other strings to his bow.

The film also played a key role in the future of screenwriter Aaron Sorkin who has gone on to become one of Hollywood’s most successful, responsible for Moneyball, The Social Network and television’s West Wing.

A Few Good Men isn’t necessarily a landmark legal drama at the level of 12 Angry Men, but it’s an example of every facet of filmmaking in front and behind the camera firing on all cylinders.