Captivating movie !

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

JAG (1995 - 2005/ 225 episodes) depicts the professional and personal life and adventures and work of US Navy Judge Advocate General lawyer Harmon Rabb, Jr., portrayed by David James Elliott. It provides a very well written, acted, and expensively filmed look at inside politics in the US Military at the officer level......Lawyer Rabb is an "O-3" or "Full Lieutenant (he out ranks Ensigns, beginning officers in the US Navy, and Lieutenant Junior Grade officers, "O-1" and "O-2" Navy officers respectively).Lt. Raab is a junior officer, not yet a "field grade" or senior officer (Lt. Commander or "O-4" is the start of the world of senior officers which includes the top officers, Admirals in the US Navy). He's been around awhile, is no longer a novice, yet is young enough and physically fit and vigorous enough for the sort of physically demanding work only young adult males are capable of, for the most part.Who is new and who isn't is always a big issue in the world of career (and non-career) military officers and men. Loyalties and internecine battles within the service are labyrinthine in the military bureaucracy world, and sorting all this out is critical to understanding what goes on in the military, and why things happen the way they do (or sometimes don't) in the military.The military is always dramatic, and thus often used by Hollywood for dramatic presentations filled with electricity and tension between military players who are supposed to be on the same side, fighting for the same cause, but who are often at odds and in personal combat with each other.One particularly good example of all this is presented in JAG Season One (1995), Episode Four titled "Desert Son." (Originally aired on Oct. 7, 1995). The "Desert Son" story is about tragedy and death which results from a human error (later intentionally covered up by the guilty Marine Corps. junior officer perpetrator) during a 29 Palms Marine Corps. base field base artillery exercise .............wrongly calculated and targeted artillery fire injures seven Marines, one of whom later dies. The accused (later proven to be guilty) is a son of a former commandant of the Marine Corps. The 2 Star Commanding Marine Corps. General in charge of the 29 Palms (California USA) Marine Corps. Base is good friends with the retired Marine Corps. Commandant General. Both Marine Corps. generals are very well acted and realized characters seen during the "Desert Son" episode.The story unfolds to present the troubled and errant junior Marine Corps officer son of am apparently retired Marine Corps. Commandant (probably retired, but maybe not.....not clear if the man is retired.......he wear civilian clothes, and walks with a cane due to a permanent battle injury.......however, he gives orders to uniformed personnel during the episode and his orders are obeyed). The story takes several confusing twists and turns, and finally reveals the "Desert Son" junior officer to be guilty of serious misconduct including attempted murder of a fellow junior officer toward the end of the episode.The entire episode is very, very well done, and could easily have been a movie house theatrical feature film of great success. The quality of this episode at all levels, including writing, acting, direction, special effects, action, and camera/ editing work is superb to a level rarely seen in television dramatic series presentations. The "Desert Son" episode (Season One, Episode Four) of JAG (1995 - 2005) is memorable and unusal for its high quality.The famous true life Marine Office, Oliver North, appears briefly in civilian clothing, and does a remarkably creditable job as a movie/ television dramatic actor. North became a radio talk show host after the famous Iran Contra Scandal he was part of during years of the Ronald Reagan US presidency. And earlier episode during Season One of JAG also include then USA President Bill Clinton seen jogging with Secret Service guards, and stopping to speak briefly in a friendly way to JAG star David James Elliott. Former USA President Bill Clinton is presently (2017) credited with 101 different appearances playing himself in various TV shows. Use by Hollywood of actual USA political celebrities and media celebrities who were reporters covering the USA political scene was common in the 1990's when JAG first appeared.JAG (1995 - 2005/ 227 episodes) is a very high quality series worth obtaining and screening from Episode One through 10 years worth of production to Episode 227. It is clearly one of the high water mark shows produced during Hollywood dramatic television history. ------------- Written by Tex Allen, SAG-AFTRA actor and movie historian. More details about Tex Allen on WWW.IMDb.Com -----------------------------

If you started JAG from the very beginning, you may have been excited about the show. NBC debuted this show which appeared to be a cross of "Top Gun" and "A Few Good Men." Lt. Harmon Rabb, Jr. played by David James Elliot was the main character with a catchy name at that!But what we saw were very wooden performances by the players. David James Elliot and crew are good actors, but they didn't seem convincing in their roles. The stories were worthy for a military show, but left little to be desired in the final product. While recycling footage from other movies is nothing new, the first season of JAG relied too much on many footage from "Top Gun" and "Clear and Present Danger" plus other military themed movies. For people who had seen those movies prior to JAG, it may have detracted a bit from the stories they were trying to present. T.V. Guide even "jeered" one of JAG's use of recycled scenes as one of their episodes had a scene which was taken directly from "Clear and Present Danger" and in a fashion that was not only footage borrowing, but literal scene stealing as T.V. Guide described it. Not cool.The first season didn't make many waves both in the network and with viewers and was subsequently cancelled. It looked like the show plus David James Elliot and company were going to be forgotten.Enter Season 2. . .The 1996 - 97 TV season was well underway when JAG returned in January 1997, but this time on CBS. David James Elliot was returning to his (soon-to-be) iconic role; with him, newcomer, Catherine Bell was tapped to play USMC Major Sarah MacKenzie. John M. Jackson (Adm A.J. Chegwiggin) and Patrick Labyorteux (Lt. Bud Roberts) who were previously recurring/guest characters returned as regulars on the show.Along with new faces to the regular cast, came new and improved writing that appealed to viewers. I don't know if hit TV creator Don Bellesario went to CBS or CBS went to him, but they took a chance: they succeeded. JAG became the hit DB wanted it to be and it aired for eight more years!The second season still used footage from "Top Gun" and other military movies in its opening sequence, plus episodes. However, it appeared that they toned the recycled scenes a bit which is a good thing (as again, they seemed to detract from the show itself in the first season).Eventually, most or all recycled movie scenes were gone. They shot their own military scenes, and unlike in the first season, the Departments of Defense and Navy cooperated in the shooting of JAG. When available, scenes were shot aboard real U.S. Navy ships, plus Marine Corps and Navy shore bases.The characters really took off and developed from season two on. The stories were something people cared about and loved to see. A few more characters joined the cast as the show continued on.Like most military movies and TV shows, there were artistic liberties taken in how they were portrayed (like a former F-14 pilot turned military lawyer still being able to get flight time!). But how the actors carried themselves were very convincing; they had the military bearing and command presence down pat! The wooden performances from season one all became but a forgotten memory.Many (cancelled) shows that get a second chance rarely make something at that shot. JAG went above and beyond when Don Bellesario, the writers and the actors regrouped and made an excellent comeback which remained at the top of its game until the very end!

Yup...JAG, it's a good concept turning bad. As far as I know the acting is overall correct, if not good. The story are not surprising : a trial and an investigation in the US Army. The characters are interesting and you feel compelled to follow their live. Even the Soap don't bothered me as I think a little soap in any show isn't bad,maybe even unavoidable. Technically, the show is far from the worse I've seen, and is, in fact, rather good. So, why 4 star only ?It's because somewhere, this show has become a vehicle for US army propaganda. When the show isn't saying' bad thing over foreigner, be they Middle-Easterner, Chinese, Russian or other, it's the American civilian that receive the burn of the culpability, or some minor religion (Wicca church episode, here we go !)Sometimes, VERY RARELY, we have a deserter, but essentially, this show turn to show (duh !) how brave and perfect are the men and women that make the US Army.Don't get me wrong, most of them probably are, but it's just exaggerated and it's there when the show just loose all credibility. This is done very blatantly sometimes, and other, in very devious way...Yeah, truly, I don't need to see a 30-45 minute recruitment trailer for US Army once per week. More of that, it's just offensive for all foreigner and even American civilian. (Just check how the navy save the face in the Pearl Harbor episode, how my !)So, I recommend to any viewer of this show to keep their brain active while watching it.

This series can be watched over and over again, and each time new details are seen. The actual shots of real naval operations are blended into the fictional story very well. Characters were built over a period of time to be believable. One week point - would a bumbling, naive over aged teenager like Bud Roberts ever have made Lt Commander in the USN? One certainly hopes not! Sympathy for his injury and battle to regain his mobility, plus appreciation for his personal life tragedies are one thing, but I feel his career skills , general usefulness to JAG and continued immaturity would deny such a promotion in the real world. The appearance of President Bill Clinton in several episodes was a real coup for the producers of the show - I enjoyed the scene where a chopper came to pick up Rabb when he was jogging in the vicinity of the Pres and his secret service guards. All in all, a really enjoyable series and I am glad that History Television in Canada is running it on an never ending cycle through all ten years of episodes.