Top Star + Tog Gun = Top Ten "A Few Good Men" is one of those movies I never miss the chance to watch when it's aired on TV. It's such a great movie. It's so good, that all stereotypes and other possible flaws one might point don't prevent me to give it a perfect 10.
Jack Nicholson IS Colonel Natan Jessup, USMC. He IS! You can swear he has always been a Marine and nothing else. He delivers such a performance that you just forget he's the most Oscar-decorated male actor ever. Just amazing.
Tom, Demi, Pollak, Bacon, Keith, Walsh, Marshall, Bodison and Preston are great, too. I't's not so easy to forget that Tom is Tom and Demi is Demi, but not to the point of either impairing suspension of reality or immersion in the movie. Pollak IS a Navy lawyer, Keith IS a USMC Lieutenant, Preston IS a judge, and Bodison IS Corporal Dawson.
The script is intelligent; the cinematography, perfect - colors, shades, mood, everything; the sound track, engaging; direction, magical: speed, rhythm, flow, everything is in place.
The superb performance of the close order drill demonstration squad close to the movie's beginning cleverly acclimates the viewer to the military establishment the story is about and where all the drama will unfold. It reminds that the movie is about a noble entity - the United States Marine Corps - whose members abide to a strict code of perfection and fitness to perform its solemn duty to its Country, thus setting the stage for a story about the conflict that steel tempered men face when one of them under-performs and their difficulty to demonstrate, feel and act with any degree of softness towards their own.
The verdict is perfect in its moral, making the experience of watching this movie completely worthwhile.
There couldn't have been a better closing theme song than John Philip Sousa's "Semper Fidelis". It's a smart move: it absolutely pins you down to the seat and forces you to read all the credits right to the end.
"A Few Good Men" is one of the best movies of all times.