Excellent film. The kind of courtroom drama that makes you want to go to law school for about forty-five minutes before you remember you're an EE major. I have a genuine thing for law and criminology. Always have. This one landed.

Yes, it takes creative liberties. No, they didn't bother me.

Rob Reiner died on December 14th, 2025. Him and his wife Michele were found stabbed in their Brentwood home. His son has been charged. I don't know how to write about one of his best films while that's still fresh. It felt wrong not to mention it. The man made The Princess Bride, Stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, and this. Some of the most quotable American cinema of the late 20th century. Rest in peace.

The Plot

Two Marines, Lance Corporal Dawson and PFC Downey, are accused of murdering a fellow Marine at Guantanamo Bay. Private Santiago. They say they were following orders. A "Code Red," which is an off-the-books disciplinary beating meant to correct underperformers. Santiago died during the hazing. The defense argues the order came from Colonel Nathan Jessup.

Lieutenant Daniel Kaffee is a Navy JAG lawyer. He's known for plea bargains and softball games. He gets assigned the case and doesn't want it. Lieutenant Commander JoAnne Galloway does. She pushes him to dig, and what starts as an open-and-shut murder case becomes something else. A referendum on military culture, chain of command, and whether "I was following orders" counts as a defense.

The 2025 Problem

In November 2025, Senator Mark Kelly appeared in a video with five other Democratic lawmakers. Kelly is a retired Navy Captain, combat veteran, astronaut. The video reminded service members that they have a legal duty to refuse illegal orders. Kelly's exact words: "Our laws are clear. You can refuse illegal orders."

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called it "despicable, reckless, and false." President Trump called it seditious behavior punishable by death. The Pentagon opened an investigation into Kelly for "serious allegations of misconduct." He's a military retiree, still subject to the UCMJ, so they're actually exploring whether to court-martial a sitting U.S. Senator for saying what the law already says.

In 1992, A Few Good Men gave us a Marine Corps where two enlisted men were convicted of "conduct unbecoming" because they followed an illegal order. The film is unambiguous. Knowing when to disobey is part of the job. Dawson and Downey should have refused. The court agrees. They get dishonorably discharged not for murder, but for failing to exercise judgment.

Thirty-three years later, a Secretary of Defense is threatening to prosecute a decorated veteran for articulating that same principle. Rachel VanLandingham, a former military lawyer and professor at Southwestern Law School, told NPR that Hegseth's public statements likely constitute "unlawful command influence." He announced the outcome he wants before the investigation finished. That taints any prosecution.

Kelly hasn't backed down. When Hegseth confronted him during a classified briefing about drug interdiction operations, Kelly kept asking his original question. Hegseth talked over him. Other senators had to intervene.

The film depicts Marines in 1992 being punished for not knowing when to refuse. In 2025, a Senator is being investigated for telling troops they can.

I don't know what to do with that.

Jack Nicholson

Nicholson makes you understand Jessup without sympathizing with him.

Jessup isn't a mustache-twirler. He believes every word he says. When he monologues about standing on walls, about protecting people who sleep under the blanket of freedom he provides, he means it. He's spent decades in a system that rewards results and punishes weakness. Santiago was weak. The Code Red was corrective. In Jessup's mind, nothing went wrong.

That's what makes him work. He's not evil for evil's sake. He's a man who has convinced himself that his authority and his righteousness are the same thing. His ego isn't separate from his worldview. It is his worldview. When Kaffee catches him in the logical trap (if Marines always follow orders, why would Santiago be in danger from men ordered not to touch him?) Jessup doesn't crumble. He doubles down. "You can't handle the truth" isn't a confession. It's a sermon.

His ego gets him court-martialed. Kaffee goads him into admitting he ordered the Code Red because Jessup cannot tolerate the implication that he's anything less than essential. He'd rather incriminate himself than let some Navy lawyer question his honor.

Nicholson earned every award nomination.

Lieutenant Colonel Markinson

Markinson is Jessup's executive officer. He knows about the Code Red. He knows Jessup ordered it. He goes along with the cover-up, then disappears. He contacts Kaffee in secret, provides information about falsified transfer orders, and then checks into a motel, puts on his dress uniform, and shoots himself.

The suicide is meant to be tragic. The film doesn't give us enough to understand why death felt like his only option. He was going to testify. He had information that would have helped the defense. Instead, he removes himself from the equation. Kaffee has to get Jessup to confess without corroboration.

Markinson is caught between two identities that can't coexist. He's a Marine, bound by loyalty and chain of command. He's also a man with a conscience who watched Santiago get hung out to dry and said nothing. Testifying against Jessup would mean admitting his own complicity. The uniform he wears in his final scene is the same uniform that represents everything he failed to uphold. He can't be a Marine and a whistleblower. So he dies as a Marine.

Maybe that's the point. Maybe Markinson is what happens when institutional loyalty overrides personal ethics for too long. But the film doesn't dig into it. He shows up, provides exposition, exits via tragedy. A character beat that needed another draft.

Captain Ross

Kevin Bacon plays the prosecutor. He does fine work. The film abandons him at the end.

When Jessup confesses, Ross just sits there. One line objecting, then he's a spectator while his star witness admits to ordering an illegal action and gets arrested in open court. I wanted a reaction shot. A moment of recalibration. Some indication that Ross, who played this case straight the whole time, realizes he was prosecuting the wrong people.

Lieutenant Kendrick gets the same treatment. Kiefer Sutherland's dead-eyed zealot is complicit in everything, clearly lied on the stand, and the film just lets him walk off. No callback. No consequences. Jessup goes down. His enforcer disappears.

The Inaccuracies

I spent half the movie thinking Kaffee was screwing up by calling Markinson "Colonel" instead of "Lieutenant Colonel." I was wrong. Military protocol says you address Lieutenant Colonels as "Colonel" in conversation. The "Lieutenant" only appears in formal written contexts. That one's on me.

The costume department was less careful. Dawson is supposed to be a Corporal. In certain scenes he's wearing Lance Corporal stripes. One chevron with crossed rifles instead of two chevrons. Small thing. Noticeable if you're looking.

The courtroom stuff is harder to forgive if you care about procedure. When Weinberg brings in the two Air Force airmen who can prove the flight logs were falsified, they walk into the courtroom mid-testimony. In a real court-martial, witnesses wait in a separate room until called. You don't parade them in front of the current witness to rattle him.

Marines don't salute indoors without a cover. People salute without headgear throughout the film. The correct procedure is to come to attention. "Conduct unbecoming a Marine" isn't a real charge under the UCMJ. Article 133 covers "Conduct Unbecoming an Officer," but that only applies to commissioned officers. Dawson and Downey are enlisted. They'd face charges under Article 134 or specific assault statutes. Confessing on the stand doesn't result in immediate handcuffs. There would be procedures, a formal charge, an investigation. Kaffee threatens his clients with Leavenworth, but Marines serve time at Portsmouth Naval Prison in New Hampshire. Leavenworth is Army and Air Force.

None of this ruins the film. Aaron Sorkin wrote a play, not a JAG manual. But if you're going to nitpick, those are the nits.

The Final Salute

After being convicted and dishonorably discharged, Dawson salutes Kaffee. He's no longer a Marine. The court just stripped him of that identity. He has no obligation to salute anyone.

He does it anyway.

The whole film, Dawson has been rigidly adherent to orders. Including the illegal ones. In the final scene, he chooses to show respect to the man who fought for him, even after the institution rejected him. The salute means something because it isn't required.

Whether the film intended this reading or just wanted a touching visual, it works.

Final Thoughts

A Few Good Men is about the tension between following orders and following conscience. It argues that institutions matter less than the principles institutions claim to uphold. Dawson and Downey failed not because they were bad Marines, but because they were too good at being Marines. They followed orders without asking whether those orders were right.

In 2025, that argument has aged into something uncomfortable. A government investigating a senator for saying soldiers should refuse illegal orders. The same government arguing that questioning orders is seditious. The film's thesis has become a mirror, and I don't love what it's reflecting.

Rob Reiner made a movie about moral courage in military institutions. He spent the rest of his life being loud and opinionated about causes he believed in. People found him annoying. That's fine. He made films that asked uncomfortable questions and trusted audiences to sit with the discomfort.

He deserved better than how he died. His films will outlast the circumstances of his death.

8 Big Claps. Would watch again, probably in one sitting this time.