This film abounds with the principle of the scapegoat victim. It offers a profound look at sacrifice, justice and satisfaction.
-Review by David Bruce |
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT
(2000)
This page was created on April 28, 2000
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May 29, 2005
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Directed by William Friedkin
Writing credits: James Webb (story), Stephen Gaghan (screenplay)
Tommy Lee Jones .... Colonel Hays Hodges
Samuel L. Jackson .... Colonel Terry Childers
Guy Pearce .... Major Mark Biggs
Bruce Greenwood .... National Security Advisor William Sokal
Blair Underwood .... Captain Lee Philip
Baker Hall .... General H. Lawrence Hodges
Anne Archer .... Mrs. Mourain
Ben Kingsley .... Ambassador Mourain
Mark Feuerstein .... Captain Tom Chandler
Dale Dye .... Major General Perry
Jihane Kortobi .... Little Girl
G. Gordon Liddy .... Radio Talk Show Host (voice)
Produced by Scott Rudin Arne Schmidt (co-producer), Adam Schroeder (executive), James Webb (executive), Richard D. Zanuck
Original music by Mark Isham
Cinematography by William A. Fraker, Nicola Pecorini, Dariusz Wolski
Film Editing by Augie Hess
Rated R for scenes of war violence, and for language.
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A hero should never have to stand alone. |
SYNOPSIS:
RULES OF ENGAGEMENT -- Directives issued by competent military authority which delineate the circumstances and limitations under which United States forces will initiate and/or continue combat engagement with other forces encountered. -- Department of Defense Dictionary of Military and Associated Term.
Col. Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) is a 30-year Marine veteran: a decorated officer with combat experience in Vietnam, Beirut and Desert Storm-- a patriot, a hero. But now, the country he served so well has put him on trial for a rescue mission that went terribly wrong. For his attorney, he has chosen Marine Col. Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), a comrade-in-arms who owes his life to Childers. Hodges is not the best lawyer in the service, but Childers trusts him as a brother Marine who knows what it's like to risk death under fire. Bound by duty and friendship, Hodges reluctantly takes the case, even as he begins to doubt the man who saved his life in Vietnam three decades ago.
When the U.S. Embassy in Yemen is surrounded by a large crowd of demonstrators, Col. Terry Childers, USMC, is ordered to lead a squadron of Marines to bolster security at the embassy. He has orders to evacuate the ambassador and his family if the situation turns violent. A few short hours after Childers launches his mission, the ambassador's safety is secured, but three of Childers' men are dead, along with more than the 80 Yemeni men, women and children killed by Marine gunfire.
Childers now faces a court-martial for violating the rules of engagement by killing unarmed civilians. He denies the charge, contending the protesters were armed and had opened fire on the Embassy. But it appears that the government has made the colonel the fall guy for an ugly diplomatic crisis: the men who could have testified on his behalf have been killed in action, one of the witnesses seems to be lying, and the President's National Security Adviser destroys evidence that might help Childers' case. Childers refuses to go down quietly and turns to his longtime friend, Hays Hodges, to defend him.
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 This film abounds with the principle of the scapegoat victim. It offers a profound look at sacrifice, justice and satisfaction.
-Review by David Bruce
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 An angry Muslim crowd turns on an U.S. Embassy in Yemen. Cars are set aflame. A battering ram pounds on the locked entrance. Guns batter the walls with bullets. |
 The large religiously motivated crowd outside has targeted a small handful of Americans inside as their sacrificial offering in the sacred war (Jihad) against the U.S.
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| "The hidden infrastructure of all religions and all cultures is in the process of declaring itself." -Rene Girard |
 Social and psychological researchers have long noted: The larger the group of attackers and the fewer the victims, the more savage the attack. |
 Col. Terry Childers, USMC, is ordered to lead a squadron of Marines to bolster security at the embassy. He has orders to evacuate Ambassador Mourain and his family if the situation turns violent. |
 The scene is ugly. Violence is escalating. Childers escorts the ambassador, his wife and their only son safely through the hail of bullets, rocks and fire to the rescue helicopter. |
 The family expresses their thankfulness to Col. Childers for his bravery in saving them from otherwise certain death at the hands of the angry mob. This appreciation is genuine and makes the later betrayal more disturbing. |
 Col. Childers discovers that the crowd is killing off his men. He now orders his men to return the fire because their very lives are at stake. |
  The soldiers fire into the crowd as they were ordered. |
| They kill everyone. The massacre includes the slaughter of seemingly unarmed women and children. When the Yemen authorities later clean up the human carnage, they report that none of the victims had guns. Yemen accuses the US of killing their innocent citizens. An international situation is now in full boil. |
 This is the President's National Security Adviser. And, his response is a plot to use Col. Terry Childers as a scapegoat. People want justice. The government needs to save face internationally. And, since Childers was the one who gave the order to fire.... So... |
| And one of them, Caiaphas, who was high priest that year, said, "How can you be so stupid? Why should the whole nation be destroyed? Let this one man die for the people." --John 11:49-50 NLT |
 Col. Childers is told he is under investigation for murder because he violated the rules of engagement, killing innocent women and children.
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| Note: In both western and Islamic cultures killing innocent women and children is a high crime because they are viewed as the ultimate victims. |
 Col. Childers is shocked and surprised and finds it hard to believe. In his mind he is sure he operated within the rules of engagement. The hero now becomes despised and rejected. He becomes the sacrificial lamb for the sins others had committed.. |
| He was oppressed and treated harshly... He was led as a lamb to the slaughter.... He had done no wrong, and he never deceived anyone. --Isaiah 53:7, 9 |
 The film brings out an interesting truth about Western culture: It is in certain ways no different than the Eastern people in Yemen. American crowds soon gather outside official US Military Headquarters calling for "justice" against Col. Childers. |
 The writers are very careful not to reveal too much in the early portions of the film. There is a time when we identify more with the enraged crowd than with Col. Childers. We are the ones yelling, "Crucify him." Very effective. |
| (The crowd) cried out, "Away with him! Away with him! Crucify him!" Pilate asked them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but the emperor." -John 19:15 NRSV |
 Col. Childers calls on Marine Col. Hays Hodges, a good friend from service in Viet Nam to defend him. They talk down by the riverside --very symbolic of friendship, openness, with a sense of connection to the basic values of life. The setting is the exact opposite of the President's National Security Adviser's office setting where the plot against Childers began. |
 Marine Col. Hays Hodges is the underdog attorney pitted against the government's highly trained and seasoned professionals. The underdog is often viewed as the winner in modern cultural myths. But, how does one defend someone who may, in fact, be guilty? At this point in the story the audience is really not sure that Col. Childers is innocent. |
When they saw him, they worshiped him-but some of them still doubted! --Matthew 28:17
Where is the truth that can set Col. Childers free? The security video tape from the US Embassy in Yemen recorded the whole event. But National Security Advisor William Sokal will not release it. In fact he burns it. |
  Tape shows an armed crowd. Truth is first victim. |
  Wife/mom in front of home is symbolic of family, position and wealth. |
| The above scenes of Col. Hays Hodges asking Mrs. Mourain, the wife of the Ambassador, to testify on behalf of Col. Childers is classic. She knows her husband will not go against the plot to crucify Childers. Her loyalty is to her ambassador husband (i.e. her status) and the wealth they enjoy (note the expensive home in the background). She has the power to set Childers free, but her priority is not truth; rather it is family and position. |
 Ambassador Mourain becomes the Judas in the story by betraying the man who saved him and the life of his only son. On the witness stand Mourain gives false testimony against Childers. |
| "By a perversion of justice he was taken away. Who could have imagined his future? For he was cut off from the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people." --Isaiah 53:8 NRSV |
  The savior warrior becomes sacrificial lamb.
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| The transition from a position of power, as a Marine Colonel, to a position of powerlessness, as a scapegoat victim, is magnificently portrayed in this film. |
 "They are going to crucify you"
states attorney Hodges to Childers.
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| "Christianity's impact on the West is a tribute to the power of its basic conception, which is the absolute centrality of the position of the victim... The moral significance of this position is enormous." -Eric Gans |
 The trial does not go well for Col. Childers. This is the lowest part of the story. The death of the scapegoat seems certain; in fact, this scene is the symbolic death of Childers. Hopelessness is the mood. But after the 'death' of the sinless lamb there is the resurrection. Childers will rise again. |
| How that resurrection happens in the midst of hopelessness I will leave to the movie. I recommend the film to you as a classic case study of sacred ritual violence in the post-modern world, and the use scapegoating. |
Meeting Gil Bailie changed me forever!
I met Mr. Baillie at the City of Angeles Film Festival. He was one of the speakers. He's a kind, unassuming, man with a powerful prophetic message that changed how I view violence.
Learn about the meaning of sacred violence in the post modern world!
Violence Unveiled:
Humanity at the Crossroads
by Gil Baillie (1995)
Winner of the 1996 Pax Christi USA Book Award
"About once in a decade I read a book which profoundly affects the way I see reality. This is such a book."
-Sandra M. Schneiders, Horizons.
"Anyone concerned about the rise of violence and social disintegration in our culture, and who wants to understand what is really happening, must read this book. It's that important."
-Sojourners.
Paperback -293 pages. |
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Bulletin Board:
OVERALL IMPRESSION
Subject: Overall impressions. Rules_of_Engagement
Date: Mon, 1 May 2000
From: ED
I am very impressed with this review and the way it is laid out. The site has definitely become more 'mature' and appeals to me greatly. I have sent the link to many others. ED |
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