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Rules of Engagement
Paramount Pictures


5.0

based on 31 reviews
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based on 2 votes
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MPAA RATING: R for scenes of war violence, and for language

Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Ben Kingsley, Blair Underwood, Anne Archer, and Guy Pearce

Retired Marine Colonel and attorney Hays Hodges (Jones) defends his old friend and comrade-in-arms Col. Terry Childers (Jackson), a highly decorated 30-year Marine veteran, who has been court-martialed for ordering his troops to fire on a hostile crowd storming the U.S. embassy in Yemen which results in the deaths of many civilians.

GENRE(S):	Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	James Webb (story) Stephen Gaghan
DIRECTED BY:	William Friedkin
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: October 10, 2000 Video: October 10, 2000 Theatrical: April 7, 2000
RUNNING TIME:	128 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The drama ultimately retreats to safer, duller, more illogical, and more reactionary impulses and stereotypes.

San Francisco Chronicle Bob Graham

But the single most compelling performance may belong to Australian actor Guy Pearce.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Friedkin turns on the juice and Jones and Jackson let it rip.

LA Weekly John Patterson

Worth it, though, for the conviction and ramrod-erect bearing that pros Jackson and Jones bring to their roles.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Works splendidly as a courtroom thriller about military values as long as you don't expect it to seriously consider those values.

New York Post Jonathan Foreman

As mechanical and predictable as a cuckoo clock, it shouldn't work half as well as it does.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

The setup doesn't make sense from the get-go.

Newsweek Ted Gideonse

Jones even manages to save this somewhat tiring film.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Friedkin does a superb job of serving up the well-appointed script by James Webb and Stephen Gaghan.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Passable, moderately diverting dramatic entertainment.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Sometimes, movies would work better if you couldn't see them.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

There's not much going on here, and there is little suspense.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

It's a deftly executed crowd-pleaser, but it's dishonest to the core.

Variety Todd McCarthy

A broad and obvious approach to ambiguous material that's virtually all plot mechanics with little nuance or characterization.

USA Today Mike Clark

The sentiments here are thoroughly semper fi, but the result occasionally works at cross-purposes.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

This military courtroom drama is full of questions, but woefully short of answers.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

Written with such murderous gravity, certainty and gloomy solemnity - such an absence of real life or feeling - that it tends to kill our interest.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

It's bottom-feeder entertainment wrapped up in high-minded airs.

Film.com John Hartl

What rescues the movie, time and again, is the strength of Jones' and Jackson's performances.

Austin Chronicle Marjorie Baumgarten

It's amazing the filmmakers never really concern themselves with satisfying the audience's rules of engagement.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

It is the verdict of this court that it be led to a stockade reserved exclusively for cheap, pandering movies and duly shot.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

A casualty of its own clumsy storytelling.

Boston Globe Jay Carr

Strenuously as it tries, and pulse-poundingly successful as the embassy rescue scene is, Rules of Engagement never engages us.

Mr. Showbiz Richard T. Jameson

Pearce is shot in such distorting closeups that he looks like an overdeveloped athlete who's been getting steroid injections in his cheeks.

TNT RoughCut Susannah Breslin

Formulaic and pretty darn plodding.

Portland Oregonian Barry Johnson

Plays like an episode of "JAG," the naval courtroom TV series. A L-O-N-G episode.

Film.com Peter Brunette

It just doesn't work. Worse, it's downright offensive.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Spoiled by its simplistic portrait of people from the Mideast as incorrigibly violent and untrustworthy.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer William Arnold

By the time the film plummets to its rock bottom, we find ourselves in a flag-waving no-brainer of the first order, and one of the most thoroughly confused morality tales in recent memory.

San Francisco Examiner Wesley Morris

A wildly dull, predictable script whose holes seem to be courtesy of random sniper fire.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

The clichés lap like bay waves, from the salutes to the brotherly brawl to the olive-oil tear streaks semipermanently painted down Jackson's cheeks.

The average user rating for this movie is 5.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

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Rules of Engagement Paramount Pictures

Rules of Engagement
Paramount Pictures