The Caine Mutiny Court Martial has the same issue I've had with this story since reading it in high school.
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The last piece of art an artist makes is always difficult to review or discuss. Because you want to be respectful of the recently departed, but also not shift expectations in the wrong direction and mislead your audience. The dearly departed Aaliyah is one of my go-to examples. Yes her posthumous self-titled album was a great demonstration of her talents as a singer, but Queen of the Damned is a movie so misguided that even the schlocky hip-hop kung fu film Romeo Must Die is a better demonstration of her appeal/talents as an actor and performer. I bring all of this up because The Caine Mutiny Court Martial is the final film from legendary director William Friedkin and beloved character actor Lance Reddick, that is a great, modestly updated version of the source material...that is also completely hamstrung by the issue I've had with this story/book and its film adaptations since I read it in high school.
The Setup
The film takes place in the aftermath of a mutiny aboard a minesweeping vessel called the U.S.S. Caine, where the peculiar Captain Queeg was overthrown by Lietenant Maryk in the midst of a crisis. Now it's up to a military tribunal to determine whether or not Maryk was in the right to do what almost no one in Navy history has ever done before...
Having seen/read/heard about 3-4 versions of this story (since this is technically an adaptation of a play based on the novel), that this one might be my favorite. For one big reason: it's all in the audience's mind's eye.
The original novel tells everything that happened, including the trial, all in sequential order. Which does mean there's a lot of backstory and subtext that doesn't hit very well at the film's end, but we'll come to that. What that means is that when the trial does come along, the audience will already have strong feelings about who is or isn't in the wrong.
By starting at the trial, the play/movie lets the audience decide for itself based on the testimony of the men involved. Friedkin also avoids any kind of Rashomon-style flashback as well, to truly allow each version or variation of events to play out in the audience's mind and uses the performances to guide the audience in the right direction.
And that's a great idea because Friedkin always did get great performances out of his leads. In particular Kiefer Sutherland who plays Queeg. Now playing a role that was played on the big screen by Humphrey Bogart is more than a touch intimidating, but Kiefer does a very good job of making this role his own. What I like about Sutherland's portrayal is that he's so reserved and quiet. He's clearly trying to be on his best behavior for the court and underplay the seriousness of everything that happened. But his body language screams that he's in crisis, as does his tendency to play off everything as misunderstandings.
This is one of the rare courtroom dramas where the lack of outbursts from the main witness carry more weight than a "You can't handle the truth" kind of moment. In fact, it's a physical act that's highly telegraphed earlier on in the film, that will start to tip the audience's sympathies even harder than they may have been already.
The rest of the actors are perfectly cast as well. The dearly departed Lance Reddick speaks with the quiet authority you'd expect from someone running a JAG courtroom, Jason Clarke is built for this kind of authority but with some spice on it kind of role, and Monica Raymund is so good at delivering lines with measured intensity (aka you can tell she wants to cuss some people out but knows she can't in this setting).
So what's the problem? Well it's the same problem I've always had with this material. Which means addressing the movie's ending.
The Ending
All adaptations of this material end the same way. After some strong questioning from the defense attorney Lieutenant Greenwald, all of Captain Queeg's bad habits and tendency to paper over his mistakes as "not mistakes" comes to a head. It's a performance so bad that it shifts the case in Lieutenant Maryk's favor and earns him either an acquittal or a reprimand that means nothing (and is later expunged in the book).
But.
At a celebration by the crew of the U.S.S Caine, a drunken Greenwald arrives and Maryk invites him to make a toast. And Greenwald, who's been barely masking disdain for Maryk and everyone involved dresses down everyone in the room. He says believes that everyone involved in the munity should be in the brig. And that Lietutenant Keefer, an aspiring writer who kept highlighting all of Queeg's misteps to Maryk is a coward who should've been the one on trial and that if Maryk didn't have ideas of mutiny he could've guided Queeg through the crisis.
And he ends by providing a toast to Queeg because he dedicated his life to the Navy and now had his patriotism and service rewarded by a destruction of his ego and his career. Because while everyone in that room was in college or safe at home, men like Queeg were already on the front lines defending the nation. In the book, he even says that the lack of support from his crew likely led to his indecision that nearly got them all killed.
He leaves, and everyone is left to think about what they did.
The epilogue on the book hammers home Keefer's cowardice by putting Keefer in command of the Caine where he behaves just as cowardly and poorly as Queeg did and Maryk's career is completely torpedoed.
The Problem
So...there's a lot of reasons this has never worked for me. In this adaptation, Keefer's own guilt in the matter is less clear than it is in the novel, which means that this moment can't come down as hard. But it could've worked. If Keefer was/is the voice in Maryk's ear the entire time and abandoned him when he needed help most, that's cowardice plain and simple. And Greenwald deciding to defend Maryk because of his disdain for Keefer's manipulations and lack of accountability works.
If it stopped there, I think it would be effective. It would be dressing down a coward while propping up someone who demonstrated real bravery by standing up to their superior officer and putting their personal reputation and career on the line.
If it stopped there, I think it would be effective. It would be dressing down a coward while propping up someone who demonstrated real bravery by standing up to their superior officer and putting their personal reputation and career on the line.
There's also elements in the book's epilogue that reinforces Keefer's cowardice, brings up parallels between the two men and how they're driven by ego, and how he ruined two men to avoid further inconvenience from Queeg.
However, the deification of Queeg and men like Queeg...has always irritated the shit out of me.
I get why this is why the original author and all subsequent adaptations like this ending. It's both a "really makes you think" kind of moment that all celebrates service in the United States military before the nation went to war WWII and after 9/11 as laying the groundwork for the men who volunteered and signed up in a crisis. Queeg was a career military man and despite his foibles, he was trying to serve his country and he should respect his service and hold men like him in esteem for their sacrifices. And if you believe in the United States military or you're writing this book in the early fifties after WWII, that makes sense.
Also a functioning military, regardless of being American or not, is dependent upon people following orders regardless of how they personally feel about them. The chain of command is the chain of command and if everyone felt free to mutiny every time they didn't trust the expertise of their commanding officer, the whole thing could break down.
That being said.
I've never been able to square the notion that Queeg was somehow in the right the whole time and that all of his mistreatment and hard-lined treatment of his men was fine. Almost all of the story is an indictment of Queeg as a leader. Because it is very clear that despite being a patriot, Queeg viewed command not as a duty, but as a reflection/means of propping up his ego. An ego so fragile that he would blackmail, punish, or even lie about the men under his command to keep it propped up or reinforce his sense of self. He shouldn't have been in command. He was bad for morale on the ship and shrunk under pressure multiple times before a real crisis (when he did it again).
Part of good leadership, in my opinion, requires accountability, and on the stand, when Queeg has had time to think about all of his missteps and perhaps view things through a different lens and perspective, he doubles down, lies and denies culpability. And his dressing down in front of the court is strong enough that he's demoted from similar duty moving forward.
Queeg is a bad leader because he's a cowardly petty tyrant. He should never have had command. If your version of the material wants to take down Keefer for being a coward who's no better than Queeg, that's great. But that's not the story being told.
In the book, the story is all viewed from the perspective of Willis Keith, a midshipman who joins the Navy and witnesses everything that occurs from Queeg's arrival, to the mutiny, the tribunal, and Keefer's cowardice after the Caine is attacked. But in the book, Keith behaves as a leader should. He remains calm under pressure while Keefer falters and prevents the ship from going up in flames. For his actions during this crisis, he is promoted to captain. Based on performance and merit.
A man just like Queeg, fails spectacularly when it matters most and is only bailed out by our narrator stepping up and demonstrating real leadership. And in spite of this, Keith and by extension our author, doesn't seem to piece this together and views he and his crewmates earlier actions as both illegal and unnecessary.
The real lesson of the story, that even it's original author seems to miss, is that some people are not well-suited to leadership, and I think it's silly to pretend a poor leader should be propped up, left in charge and defended from ridicule for the sake of order or in reference to their service. Because bad leadership in a combat situation isn't a petty inconvenience. That's how good people end up dead.
As much as I alluded to the chain of command being essential to day to day military function, the trade-off that the pro-military crowd either ignores or implicitly agrees with is that people will die for the sake of that order. And that's something I can't accept or agree with, nor do I think it's supported by the text in every version of this material I've seen.
What The Caine Mutiny and all its iterations capturesso well is the glaring disconnect between the majority of commanding officers and the people under their command. How one officer can make an already depersonalizing experience even less so. And after compiling a list of reasons why that leadership should be challenged, especially when lives are on the line, it concludes that questioning that authority in a meaningful way is wrong-headed at best and a coward's way at worst.
What The Caine Mutiny and all its iterations capturesso well is the glaring disconnect between the majority of commanding officers and the people under their command. How one officer can make an already depersonalizing experience even less so. And after compiling a list of reasons why that leadership should be challenged, especially when lives are on the line, it concludes that questioning that authority in a meaningful way is wrong-headed at best and a coward's way at worst.
And I can't square with that. As a person. Morally. And even as the message in a piece of art. Meaningful respect for leaders, in all of my life experiences, is always earned. It is not demanded by the position. And those that act as if it is, shouldn't be in that position in the first place. Because when it comes down to it, they will not act in the best interest of those beneath them, the mission, or even their country. They will only act for themselves.
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