A Few Good Men
Grace Pinkus
April 10th, 2019
Cinema Movie Review
Muench
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For my second movie review, I decided to choose ‘A Few Good Men’ from the list of Top 100 movies. Rob Reiner's film A Few Good Men, is a legal thriller filled with drama. U.S. Marines Lance Corporal Harold Dawson and Private First Class Louden Downey are facing a general court-martial, accused of murdering fellow Marine Private First Class William Santiago at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Santiago had poor relations with his fellow Marines, compared unfavorably to them, and broke the Marine code of conduct in an attempt to get transferred out of Guantanamo. The film follows defense lawyers Lt. Daniel Kaffee (Tom Cruise) and Lt. Commander Joanne Galloway (Demi Moore) as they work to find the truth and make a case for the young marines on trial. These two big-time actors are joined by Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, and Kiefer Sutherland to create a loaded cast. In my opinion, this movie would be nowhere near as successful as it was without the casting. Along with the casting choices of Rob Reiner, another thing I liked about this film was the last scene. Jack Nicholson does a fantastic job and makes the ending the most exciting part of the movie. One only thing I disliked about this movie was that the plot was a little too slow moving at the beginning. Once the plot started to progress, it got very entertaining. One thing that I noticed was a lot of different filming techniques throughout the movie. For example, when two people were in a conversation, it was filmed showing both people talking, over the shoulder of the actor being spoken to, or a shot of just the actor speaking as if you are the one in the conversation. Another example is that at the beginning of the film, the marines are shown training in line with guns. This scene is filmed from many different angles to capture the fact that each movement is done in perfect sync. The various change in shots made the film so much more interesting to me. With this being my second year taking cinematography, I have started to realize how big of an impact what I’ve learned has had on the way I watch films. I have noticed that I view films different now that I’m watching with a critical eye and searching for things I’ve been taught. Without taking cinema, I would not have noticed how the courtroom is lit, how the camera films Jack Nicholson from an angle below his face in order to create an intimidating effect, and how the music was chosen for a specific scene. Every time I learn something new, I look for it in the next film that I watch. I would 10/10 recommend this movie to anyone who loves exciting mysterious films. Because the assignment was to watch a Top 100 movie I got the opportunity to pick an older movie that I haven’t seen before. I’ve learned so many things in cinema already and I can’t wait to learn more.