Just rented it.

 I wanted to like this movie. I really did, because...
 I like Tommy Lee Jones. He's a great actor.

 I'd guess even right-wingers enjoy Tommy Lee Jones,
 even tho he was Al Gore's roommate in college and

 I love Samuel L. Jackson.

 I think Pulp Fiction is THE movie, and The Godfather movies come second,
 but then there are days I think The Godfather movies are better, ...so who knows...

 I stand behind our men in uniform, perhaps more than some.
 That's why I liked Pearl Harbor so much - (just kidding, Ben)

 So I was especially disappointed by the horrible writing in this movie.
 The writing was so bad, Pauly Shore could've won this case in court.
 It was so poorly written, it should've starred Tori Spelling.

 Maybe Tommy needed another home in southern France,
 maybe Sammy needed another fleet of sports cars, I don't know...

 This movie was so flawed, may I count the ways?

 If you have seen it, you know it's about a stellar Marine who was put in an impossible situation,
 trying to save lives and defend the Yemeni embassy under siege from your garden variety,
 machinegun-toting, reliogio-wacko fundi-terrorists.

 The movie has two parts - the attack on the embassy, which was heart-pounding,
 and the stupid, stupid trial, which Tori Spelling could've won drunk and on her period.

 Here's what Tori could've pointed out to the idiot court.

 1. Ben Kingsley, the Yemen ambassador, lied on the witness stand that hostilities did not commence
  in his presence, that he was trying to address the crowd when Sammy kidnapped him, against his will,
  and forced him into the waiting helicopter when there was no logical reason to do so.

 Yet,

 He also admitted on the stand that the flag he brought home was riddled with bullet holes.

 Tommy Lee didn't think to ask him how our flag became riddled with bullet holes
 if he left BEFORE hostilities commenced.

 I mean, c'mon, a high school kid can add two and two.
 Why did the crazy editor of this movie leave the flag scene in?
 I kept thinking, "Tommy Lee's going to pound his ass on cross,"
 but no, Tommy could only speak the lines the writers handed him.
 Suddenly Susan had better writing than that.

 2. Sammy's own men testified falsely against him.
    They went into a life-and-death situation with a stand-up commander, and they screwed him.

    Why?

    The Yemeni Ambassador testified falsley against him, even tho Sammy personally saved his life,
    saved his wife, saved their little boy. - yet they screwed him. Why?

 This goes back to that World War II-fireman analogy:
 If you pull me out of a burning building and save my life, what the hell motivation
 could I have to falsely call you a traitor and a murderer at your court martial?

 The National Security Advisor had a videotape that proved hundreds of religiously-insane terrorists
 were firing on the embassy, but he went out of his way to destroy the proof that our best and bravest
 fought their hearts out (and three died) saving the innocent Americans, but he destroyed the tape
 like this was some damn Billy Jack movie.

  Sidebar:
 I liked the first two Billy Jack movies a whole lot. (I was a kid.)
 They were the first karate movies in American film.
 Billy Jack whopped ass on the bad guys.

 But then Tom Laughlin made "Billy Jack Goes to Washington," which showed our National
 Guardsmen laughing about murdering innocent twelve-year old girls - it was so rotten,
 I came out of the theater ready to vote for Richard Nixon.
 Just think - how wrong must a movie be that it would make me want to vote for Nixon?

 The national Security advisor knew the brave Marine was innocent, but he framed him with no motive.
 The National Security advisor was more one dimensional than Screech on Saved by the Bell.
 The writers didn't even think to have Sammy be an old nemesis of Sandy's, maybe he stole an
 old girlfriend when they were both at the academy, but noooooooooo. Hell, they could've made
 him a racist and at least given him some flawed motivation for being evil personified.
 It was just a senseless conspiracy to frame an innocent hero.

 On top of everything else, the Marines had a Viet Cong colonel and a doctor from Islamic Jihad
 testifying against a multi-decorated war hero - that was more stupid than Clinton's impeachment.

 3. They forced Sammy to admit that he said "waste the mother-effers" as he ordered his Marines
 to defend themselves. They knew this because his aircraft carrier was recording all the audio from
 their helmet mics a couple of hundred miles away.

 Well, shit.

 If they had the audio of Sammy screaming. "waste 'em," that means they also had the audio
 of the dozens and dozens and dozens of machines guns attacking the embassy when the lying
 ambassador said "There were no hostilities. I was hoping to address the crowd."

 Jesus, if you have a tape of him screwing up, that means you have proof that they were under fire.
 That means they also have the tape of Sammy coaxing the pink tutu ambassador our from
 under his desk as hundreds and hundreds of machinegun bullets riddled his office.

 No hostilities, Mr Ambassador?

 But noooooooooooo.
 Tommy Lee's character didn't think of that.

 True to the worst writing of the millenium so far, Sammy says,
"No need to play that tape, because I admit everything the prosecutor says is true."

 Add to all that, there must've been dozens of honest marines who witnessed the firefight live on the
 carrier and knew beyond all doubt that Sammy was innocent. There could've been hundreds of
 witnesses to the live action audio, plus the people involved in rerecording the audio onto the videotape
 that got sent to the National Secxurity advisor, yet they allllllllllllllll remained silent while their
 evil government tried to destroy the innocent hero.

 This is horseshit.
 If I was directing the high school play, I could've re-written this to make sense.

 In the end, after two hours of impossibly-bad writing, they find Sammy innocent.
 It would've made a better movie if they'd found him guilty, then have Anne Archer,
 consumed with guilt over seeing Sammy destroyed for his heroism in saving her and
 her little boy and her weasel of an asshole husband, stands up after the verdict and say,
 "My husband lied, Sammy saved all of us."

 But I guess they didn't have time for that scene, because they had to show Sammy
 risk his ass and the asses of a dozen people on that chopper to go back for the flag.
 They even showed flashbacks of Sammy handing the flag to the ambassador on the
 helicopter saying, "I hope you know how to fold this."

 They went thru allllllllllllll that just to forget the flag evidence at the trial?

 4. Sammy's "crime" was firing on "innocent women and children."
 Why would a crowd of innocent women and children want to stand by while a gang of
 machinegun-toting religio-maniacs attempt to murder a squad of United States Marines?
 Did the crowd assume our Marines would just lay there and take it like Senate Democrats?
 How do you "accidentally" find yourself in a firefight between Marines and Islamic Jihad?

 Of course, Tommy Lobotomy's character didn't bother to ask that question.
 No, that would've shown some intelligence on his part.

 Halfway thru the movie, Tommy Lee meets a nine-year old girl with one leg.
 Turns out, her leg was shot off by one of our Marine bullets (so they claimed).
 But in a flashback, we see the little girl also was firing a machinegun at the Marines.

 The purpose of this movie seemed to be to get the audience to hate Arabs and hate
 the United States government for needlessly screwing an innocent war hero.
 Of course, it was wriitten by a Reagan Republican, so maybe that's fitting.

 Our Marines deserved a better movie than this.

 This film was directed by William Friedkin, the man who did The Exorcist,
 almost thirty years ago which had it's own horrific writing problems.
 No, ...wait, ...that's the Catholic Church - sorry.

 But any idiot, fleabag lawyer could've gotten these charges dropped at the first hearing.
 The only way this movie lasts two hours is to have everyone who knows better remain
 silent while the no-motive government attacks one of their best while his Pauly Shore
 lawyer forgets to ask every question that would free his client.

 Tommy, Sammy, do us a favor:
 Read the script before you sign the next contract, would you?