I’ve loved this movie forever and can’t skip to another channel if I stumble upon it not matter how far through the movie may be. In order for me to watch it though I have to pretend that the characters are not in the military, particularly Demi Moore because…
She a f**king LCDR (O-4) and she is continually eating shit fed to her by Tom Cruise LTJG (O-2) and Kevin Pollack (O-2). I’ve never, in all my days in the military as both an officer and enlisted, seen an O4 take the kind of verbal abuse that she does from these two, particularly TC. They yell at her, critique her at every turn and basically shit on her for the entire movie. It’s entirely unbelievable even for the most sheepish of officers I’ve encountered. She’s begging TC to like her every other scene. And, though different rank officers may call each other by their first names, an O2 is NOT going to be running around calling a LCDR Joe, even in the JAG and Medical corps.
Does anyone else have as hard of a time believing this dynamic? It damn near ruins the movie for me now that I’m an O3 myself.
Not that it should make any difference but the insubordination you note is even more unbelievable when you consider that Galloway was originally conceived of as a man according to Roger Ebert which would have removed the chauvinistic dynamic.
You’re not the only one. The movie starts out okay, until Kaffee’s first meeting with Galloway in her office. At the end of their discussion, he gets up to leave, and she turns and looks him in the eye.
“You’re dismissed.”
“I always forget that part.”
He then leaves the office while Sam makes some lame excuse about Kaffee being overly nervous about some softball game. Galloway just stares after them as they leave, as if this brash, devil-may-care junior officer has just displayed some quality that makes him above extending basic military courtesy. Which is odd, because the gist of their meeting is that he didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
Hell, at least Jessup knocked him down a peg when he tried to pull that “I’m too cool to follow the rules” crap.
I love the movie and also cannot pass it up whenever it’s on TV.
Besides her character’s personality, and the interpersonal dynamics, Demi Moore’s hair in this movie completely baffles me. It’s sort of this very long ducktail that swoops to the back of her head and folds in upon itself. It defies gravity and geometry at the same time.
Amen on both counts. Even though I’ve seen it dozens of times I can never help getting distracted by her 'do. At first I thought it was rolled up like some kind of coif from the 30s but I think your depiction of it as gravity defying duck tail is right on spot.
As for the OP’s point, I can’t imagine anyone not in the military really noticing or caring. The whole crux of Cruise’s character is that he’s a maverick.
Isn’t a big part of the movie about how the guys in Washington aren’t real soliders, they’re just like regular office workers? The Marines at Gitmo on the other hand are are real soliders and are all about chain of command. By having Demi Moore and Tom Cruise act as equals it contrasts them with Jack Nicholson and Keifer Sutherland etc.
Hollywood occasionally finds itself in the difficult position of trying to preserve an actress’s appeal while not being completely outside of MIL-SPEC. Creative solutions abound.
That’s pretty much it. Galloway has these issues because she’s not even a “real” lawyer. She doesn’t litigate cases; the one case she mentions went off the rails because of her incompetence. She does investigations of other lawyers, so not only does she not get the respect that litigators like Kaffee and Weinberg get, she doesn’t get much respect, period. So despite her higher rank, she’s low on the legal pecking order, and once they’ve all figured that out, she goes back to being insecure and wanting to be liked.
In terms of addressing each other by first name, it’s really not that big a deal because most of them follow the etiquette of any other professional office, at least in day-to-day interactions. The presence of a uniform and rank doesn’t change how they do their jobs, except that they have more regulations to follow.
Also, the hairstyle, while bizarre, isn’t inconsistent with Navy regs, at least not at the time the film was made. (I was in at about the same time.) Most of the women I knew, including me, wore our hair short and at least somewhat styled. Hairstyles have to match gender, so styling is a Good Thing. (Mine was in more of a bob.)
Thats how its shown in the movie yes. Someone like Col Jessup who is being groomed for higher rank would have put some time in at the Pentagon. Lots of combat soldiers do a stint in DC.
Lawyers are different. At least in the Army, I don’t know the Navy that well. Many professionals such as doctors, lawyers, dentist, etc are given direct commisions. They are not needed to lead troops. They are recruited for their expertise. Many have never even been in ROTC before they are commissioned. They slap a bar on them, give them a quick course on which hand to salute with and sent on their way. There is generally a lot less formality and discipline with them. And their haircuts are usually pushing the limits.
After spending a year in Gitmo myself, the scenes showing the base take me right out of the movie. But it amused me that I played in a weekly poker game with the guy that had Col Jessup’s job.
But Kaffee was not known for being some dynamic litigator. Just the opposite: he was the Plea Bargain Poster Boy. Why would she hold him in awe and gaze at him longingly out of some kind of professional admiration, when he was notorious as a lawyer who had never even been in a courtroom?
ETA: Hell, she even displays contempt at Kaffee’s immediate attempt to come up with a plea that would result in the least amount of prison time for his clients. She wants him to try the case, but he wants to plead it out. I’m not seeing the dynamic you’re alluding to here.
“I play poker 300 yards from 4000 Cubans, who are trained to kill me, so don’t think for one second that you can call me down here, flash your chips and make me nervous.”
“Good lord, Col. Do you start all your bluffs that way?”
