Rules of Engagement

Rules of Engagement is a 2000 American war legal drama film, directed by William Friedkin, written by Stephen Gaghan, from a story by Jim Webb, and starring Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson plays U.S. Marine Colonel Terry Childers, who is brought to court-martial after Marines under his orders kill several civilians outside the U.S. embassy in Yemen. Plot In 1968, during the Vietnam War, a disastrous American advance leaves U.S. Marine Lieutenant Hayes Hodges wounded and his men dead. His fellow platoon leader Lieutenant Terry Childers executes a North Vietnamese prisoner to intimidate a captive officer into calling off a mortar attack on Hodges' position; sparing the officer's life, Childers rescues Hodges. In 1996, Hodges, now a colonel, is set to retire after 28 years as a JAG officer. At his pre-retirement party at the Camp Lejeune Officers Club, he is honored by his old friend, Colonel Terry Childers, now the commanding officer of a Marine Expeditionary Unit. Childers and his unit are deployed to Southwest Asia as part of an Amphibious Readiness Group, called to evacuate the U.S. Ambassador to Yemen when a routine anti-American demonstration at the embassy erupts in rock-throwing, Molotov cocktails, and gunfire. Escorting Ambassador Mourain and his family safely to a helicopter, Childers retrieves the embassy's American flag. Under heavy fire from snipers on nearby rooftops, three Marines are killed, and Childers orders his men to open fire on the crowd, resulting in the deaths of 83 irregular Yemeni soldiers and civilians, including children; the remaining Marines and embassy staff are saved.