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''Rules of Engagement'' is a 2000 American mystery and war-drama film directed by William Friedkin and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson plays U.S. Marine Colonel Terry Childers, who is brought to court-martial after men under Childers' orders kill a large number of civilians outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen. James Webb, to whom the story is credited, is a US Naval Academy graduate and former U.S. Marine combat officer who was awarded the Navy Cross in Vietnam as a Lieutenant platoon commander, a lawyer and U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Webb later served as a U.S. Senator from Virginia. ==Plot== Operation Kingfisher, a disastrous American advance in the Vietnam War has 2nd Lt. Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) executing an unarmed prisoner in order to intimidate a Vietnam People's Army officer into calling off an ambush of U.S. Marines. His act thereby saves the life of wounded 2nd Lt. Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones). In 1996, Col Hodges is about to retire from the Marine Corps, and is reminiscing about his years in uniform. As a result of wounds he sustained during Operation Kingfisher, Hodges could no longer continue as an infantry officer, so the Marine Corps have sent him to law school and he continued his career as a JAG officer. He subsequently enters the Camp Lejeune Officers Club, where numerous Marine officers wait to honor his service at a pre-retirement party. Hosting the event is his old friend, Col Terry Childers, who is now the commanding officer of a Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU). Subsequently deployed to Southwest Asia as part of an Amphibious Readiness Group, Col Childers and his embarked MEU are called to evacuate the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen from the embassy grounds, as a routine demonstration against American influence on the Arabian peninsula and in the Persian Gulf turns into rock-throwing and sporadic automatic rifle fire from nearby rooftops. After escorting the ambassador to a waiting helicopter, Childers returns to the embassy to retrieve the American flag; meanwhile three Marines are killed by snipers on nearby rooftops. Childers, after appearing to see firing also from the crowd below, orders his men to open fire on the crowd and "waste the motherfuckers", resulting in the deaths of 83 civilian protesters and injuries to over 100 more. Back in the States, the U.S. National Security Advisor, Bill Sokal (Bruce Greenwood), decides to proceed with a court-martial to try to deflect negative public opinion about the United States, shouldering all the blame for the incident onto Childers, and salvage American relations in the Middle East. Childers still keeps in touch with Hodges, whose life he saved. Hodges is now serving in his final assignment before his official retirement in the U.S. Marine Corps Judge Advocate Division, and Childers asks him to be his defense attorney at the upcoming tribunal. Hodges is reluctant to accept, knowing that his record as a JAG officer is less than impressive, and Childers needs a better lawyer. But Childers is adamant, because he would rather have an attorney who has served in combat before. Most of the evidence is stacked against Childers, particularly the fact that no one else in his team can testify to having seen gunfire coming from the crowd, but also considering his poor choice of words when giving the order to open fire - which could be interpreted as evidence of prejudice or at least a gung-ho attitude - and his occasional angry outbursts. Sokal is determined for him to be convicted and, at one point, burns a videotape of security camera footage revealing that some members of the crowd were indeed armed and firing at the Marines; evidence that would potentially exonerate Childers. He also blackmails the ambassador Childers rescued, Ambassador Mourain (Ben Kingsley), into lying on the stand and saying both that the crowd had been peaceful and that Childers had been violent towards him and his family during the evacuation. However, at the trial, Hodges presents a shipping manifest proving that a tape from an undamaged camera which had been looking directly into the crowd — the tape Sokal had burned — had been delivered to Sokal's office, but failed to show up at the trial, arguing that this tape would have been damning evidence against Childers if it had, in fact, shown the crowd was unarmed. Also, when the prosecution presents the Vietnamese colonel who witnessed Childers execute a POW in Vietnam, Colonel Cao, as a rebuttal witness, Hodges cross-examines him and gets him to testify that, had the circumstances been reversed, he would have done the same thing. After the trial, Hodges visits Sokal and asks him what had happened to the tape; Sokal denies its existence and Hodges replies "Have you ever had a pissed off Marine on your tail?" The film ends with Childers being found guilty of the minor charge of breach of the peace (for having disobeyed his order to just show his Marines' presence), but not guilty of the more serious charges of conduct unbecoming of an officer (eligible for Dismissal from the Service, similar to a Dishonorable discharge for enlisted personnel) and murder (eligible for life imprisonment, and even the death penalty). A final title card reveals that no further charges were brought against Childers, and that he retired honorably from the Marine Corps. The title card also explains that both Sokal and Mourain lost their jobs after being convicted of destruction of evidence and perjury respectively. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rules of Engagement (film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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