MOVIE · 2000

Rules of Engagement

DramaThrillerWar128 min

After a deadly confrontation outside the American embassy in Yemen, Marine Colonel Terry Childers faces a court-martial for ordering his men to fire on demonstrators. Samuel L. Jackson is Childers, a career officer whose defense falls to Tommy Lee Jones’s Hayes Hodges, a Marine lawyer and Vietnam veteran with a long history with the accused. As the case moves from battlefield testimony to military courtroom maneuvering, the film keeps its focus on what was seen, what was ordered, and how loyalty collides with the chain of command.