Word: yemen
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Even to hard-core, pro-army, Yemen-hating moviegoers the film's conclusion will not make sense. Hero or not, the actual evidence and the court case that is portrayed leads no one to expect or rejoice at a verdict of "innocent." Jones' character is not a particularly good lawyer-moreover, the case clearly doesn't hold water against the government's evidence-lying witnesses...
...film begins (after a Vietnam flashback, which shows how Jackson and Tommy Lee Jones became blood brothers) with an angry mob outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen. Childers and his troops are helicoptered in to protect the embassy and, if necessary, to remove the ambassador. Childers saves the cowardly ambassador (played by an uncreative Ben Kingsley) and his family, and even more importantly, he rescues the American flag from the roof of the building. The next task is to fight off those dangerous Yemenites. Jackson becomes agitated after three of his troops are shot, so instead of focussing on warding...
...this point we are supposed to be angry at the government for blaming Childers. But we've seen what happened in Yemen-Childers is alt least 90 percent to blame-whether or not he should be made a scapegoat is beyond the point. As his lawyer Childers chooses Col. Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones '69), a close friend whose life he saved in Vietnam. Hodges is a recovering alcoholic who has just retired-he was never a very good lawyer, but he feels that he owes it to his friend to defend...
...movie focuses, or at least tries to focus, on the moral dilemmas that Hodges faces. He trusts his friend, but when he visits Yemen to look for evidence, he witnesses first-hand the effects of Childers's attack and is mortified and subsequently falls off the wagon. But this, the one aspect of this movie that could be interesting or thought provoking-that Hodges has to defend a friend who he believes to be guilty-dissipates into thin air. Hodges simply forgets all that he saw in Yemen and vigorously defends his friend. The audience keeps wondering where the moral...
...heroes shouldn't have to stand alone. Besides the film's questionable morals and its self-contradicting characters, it has some wildly unbelievable subplots. For instance, when Hodges goes to Yemen he sees a skinny, one-legged girl on one of those tragic-looking hand-carved crutches. She is adorable, and a perfect figure to represent the suffering Childers caused. That is, the first time we see her. She hobbles around incessantly, silently leading Hodges around. He thinks about her on his trip back. We get another flashback later on and by this point she has gone from a horrifying...