Rules Of Engagement

(Paramount)

William Friedkin's anticlimactic courtroom drama has recently retired Marine colonel Hayes Hodges (a well-weathered Tommy Lee Jones) defending Colonel Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson), who's being court-martialed for ordering the annihilation of 200 Arab civilians protesting outside the American embassy in Yemen. No problem: a security tape reveals the entire crowd armed to the teeth -- the men point pistols, the women pull gun machines out from under their skirts, even a six-year-old girl is packing heat. It's a cheap, obvious trick that plays right into the hands of Hollywood's overbearing Arab-as-terrorist motif that films like The Siege and Three Kings sought to destroy. The Jackson/Jones partnership has been a long time coming; it's a pity their first joint endeavor is swallowed whole by racist propaganda and blind American patriotism.