The Caine Mutiny Court-Mar­tial – first-look review

A title card quot­ing William Fried­kin pre­ced­ed the Venice pre­mière of his final film, play­ing just a few weeks after his pass­ing aged 87. ​“All of the films I have made, that I have cho­sen to make, are all about the thin line between good and evil. And also the thin line that exists in each and every one of us. That’s what my films are about.” the screen read. It’s fit­ting that his final film should speak to this sum­ma­ry – The Caine Mutiny Court-Mar­tial con­cerns a sailor accused of act­ing against his supe­ri­or offi­cer, who main­tains he believes the man to have been men­tal­ly unfit dur­ing a time of crisis.

Based on Her­man Wouk’s stage play (in turn adapt­ed from his 1951 nov­el) but updat­ed to the present day, this cham­ber piece sees Lieu­tenant Bar­ney Green­wald (Jason Clarke) tasked with defend­ing the accused Lieu­tenant Stephen Maryk (Jake Lacy) who faces 15 years in mil­i­tary cus­tody if found guilty. Green­wald is reluc­tant to do so, large­ly because he thinks Maryk did mutiny against Lieu­tenant Com­man­der Phillip Queeg (Keifer Suther­land). Still, he faces off against the pros­e­cu­tion, head­ed by Com­man­der Kather­ine Challee (Mon­i­ca Ray­mund) in a court over­seen by the for­mi­da­ble Cap­tain Luther Blake­ly (Lance Red­dick) to try and get to the truth of the matter.

Queeg ini­tial­ly seems to be a firm but fair man. He claims to have inher­it­ed an unruly ship when he took his post aboard the USS Caine and has done every­thing in his pow­er to bring his men to heel. This has made him unpop­u­lar, par­tic­u­lar­ly with his offi­cers, Lieu­tenants Maryk, Keefer (Lewis Pull­man) and Kei­th (Tom Riley). They are all called up to give evi­dence of Queeg’s sup­posed incom­pe­tence, which ranges from puni­tive pun­ish­ments to a wild goose chase involv­ing cheese theft (“He’s liv­ing the cheese busi­ness all over again” is a choice line of dia­logue). Yet this is all com­plete­ly com­pelling to watch – as is the grand tra­di­tion of court­room dra­mas, the audi­ence becomes the jury as well, silent­ly weigh­ing the evi­dence and assess­ing each witness’s credibility.

Visu­al­ly the film doesn’t have a lot going on. It’s quite staid (even though Fried­kin worked with Bug cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Michael Grady) and as the action takes place almost entire­ly with­in a sin­gle room at the US Naval head­quar­ters in San Fran­cis­co with no score, the aus­tere atmos­phere does mean there’s a lot of pres­sure on the cast’s shoul­ders. But Jason Clarke com­mands the screen with a steely-eyed deter­mi­na­tion. Green­wald seems unflap­pable, and his sup­posed reluc­tance to take the case doesn’t stop him fight­ing like hell. Ray­mund pro­vides a wor­thy oppo­nent – there’s a sense of his­to­ry between the pair as they par­ry and counter – and the sight of the late, great Lance Red­dick (to whom the film is also ded­i­cat­ed) is bit­ter­sweet, as his deep tim­bre and inscrutable expres­sion add a real grav­i­tas. Lewis Pull­man deserves a shout-out too, fast becom­ing a chameleon­ic actor who can sell mild man­ners and hid­den agen­das with ease.

This is Friedkin’s sec­ond film about a court-mar­tial, fol­low­ing the wide­ly panned Rules of Engage­ment in 2000. Through­out his career, the film­mak­er was fas­ci­nat­ed by tales of law­mak­ers, law­break­ers, cops and mil­i­tary men. This relates back to Friedkin’s own assess­ment of his work being about the thin line that exists between good and evil, par­tic­u­lar­ly with­in humans – where bet­ter to explore that with­in the set­ting of a closed court­room, where men and women argue over events where the only evi­dence is tes­ti­mo­ny and a sworn oath to a God they may or may not believe in?

At the end of the tri­al, Green­wald admon­ish­es the offices in a furi­ous mono­logue, deliv­ered with sig­na­ture inten­si­ty by Clarke. He express­es admi­ra­tion for Queeg, and the men of his gen­er­a­tion who served their coun­try ​“dur­ing peace­time”, pri­or to the influx of enlist­ments that came with the War on Ter­ror. But Green­wald him­self hard­ly comes across as a bas­tion of moral good­ness, and it seems this is a hint he too is becom­ing a man out of time. Per­haps that’s all of our fates. As always, Fried­kin leaves it up to us to wres­tle with the impli­ca­tions of his nar­ra­tive. Noth­ing is ever black and white in his idio­syn­crat­ic worlds, or indeed the one we live in. But this much is true: we’re all the poor­er for hav­ing lost him as a filmmaker.