The General's Daughter

The General's Daughter is a 1999 American mystery thriller film directed by Simon West from a screenplay co-written by Christopher Bertolini and William Goldman, based on the novel of the same name by Nelson DeMille. It stars John Travolta, Madeleine Stowe, James Cromwell, Timothy Hutton, Clarence Williams III, and James Woods. The plot concerns the mysterious death of the daughter of a prominent Army general. The General's Daughter received negative reviews from critics, but was a box-office success, grossing $149.7 million worldwide against an estimated budget of $60 to $95 million. Plot While in Georgia, Chief Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, an undercover agent of the United States Army Criminal Investigation Division Command, masquerades as First Sergeant Frank White to broker an illegal arms trade with a self-proclaimed freedom fighter. At Fort MacCallum, Brenner gets a flat tire and Captain Elisabeth Campbell, a psychological operations officer and the daughter of Lieutenant General Joseph "Fighting Joe" Campbell, the base commander, helps him change it. The next evening she is found murdered. The base provost marshal, Colonel William Kent, secures the crime scene. Brenner and rape specialist Warrant Officer Sara Sunhill are brought in to investigate. They receive Elisabeth's records and notice that her grades plummeted her second year at West Point. Brenner wants to search Elisabeth's house, but Kent declines because it is off-base and therefore outside their jurisdiction. Picking the lock of Elisabeth's house, Brenner and Sunhill find a room containing video and BDSM equipment, but an intruder attacks him and removes the videotapes. He questions Elisabeth's superior officer, Colonel Robert Moore, whose evasiveness leads to his arrest on charges of conduct unbecoming an officer. At the crime scene, Sunhill is attacked in an attempt to intimidate her and Brenner. During the attack she notices one assailant is wearing a silver claddagh ring, and identifies him as Captain Jake Elby. At gunpoint, Elby confesses that Elisabeth was sexually promiscuous with the men on the base as part of an extensive "psychological warfare" campaign against her father. Back at the jail, Kent releases Moore, confining him to quarters at his home on-base. Upon returning to Moore's home, he, Brenner, and Sunhill find him dead with an apparently self-inflicted bullet to the head, which Brenner doubts was suicide.