Rules of Engagement (2000)

This is an okay movie. Colonel Terry Childers (Samuel L. Jackson) is sent on a mission to evacuate an ambassador from an embassy in a volatile region of Yemen. During the operation the marines are shot at and a few of them are killed in action. Childers orders his men to fire on the wild crowd below and many women and children are killed. The Colonel is court martialed for murder because no weapons were found on the dead victims. He asks Hays Hodges (Tommy Lee Jones), a military lawyer with mixed success, who fought alongside him in Vietnam, to defend his reputation against the charges.

Screenwriter James Webb is a former Marine combat officer, lawyer and Secretary of the Navy. Webb is currently the senior United States Senator from Virginia.