"You can't handle the truth!" - A review of "A few good men" (the film)

It is likely you've heard of this film, but simply 'heard of it', or 'saw it once' doesn't do it justice. It deserves to occupy a greater place in a moviegoer's mind. While it isn't always necessary that talented people coming together will always make a good movie ( 'The Terminal' for e.g. starred Tom Hanks and was directed by Steven Spielberg, and it turned out to be a pretty ordinary movie) this one has Rob Reiner (Director, also of 'When Harry met Sally'), Aaron Sorkin (Writer, also of 'Social Network'), THE Jack Nicholson (3 time Oscar winner), Tom Cruise and Demi Moore coming together to make one hell of a movie.

It is based on a play by the same writer, which ran on Broadway - no less. It is a courtroom drama set in the backdrop of the US Navy - marines, to be exact. A marine posted on Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (it hadn't gained its infamous reputation yet) is struggling to keep up with the rest of his unit, and eventually turns whistle-blower to try and get out. He dies after a couple of his fellow marines gag him and punch him repeatedly, an action known locally as a 'code red'. These two marines are charged by the Govt. of murder. Kevin Bacon is the lawyer representing the Govt., and Demi Moore and Tom Cruise are representing the accused. Jack Nicholson is the commanding officer in Guantanamo Bay at the time of the incident. There are still other characters who are very important at different points during the story, but, in the interest of concision, I'm leaving them out of this post.

One of the hallmarks of a truly great story (which is always the backbone of a good movie) is that its characters' motivations are clear to the reader/listener/viewer. Tom Cruise plays a character who is a Harvard Law grad, and is also the son of a (now deceased) very well known and respected lawyer. He possesses, however, a unique reputation - he'll cut a deal quickly with the opposing counsel, one that is palatable to both parties, and - crucially for him - ensures that they stay out of the courtroom! He is sharp, and possesses expert knowledge of the law (exemplified by his line "..don't tell me what I know or don't know, I know THE LAW!"). However, he fears that he wouldn't make as good a lawyer as his father, which is the real reason why he actively avoids arguing a case in court, in full view of a judge/jury. Now that's the kind of protagonist that viewers can really identify with, a person who has both strengths and shortcomings, and is actively utilizing the former to shield the latter. Most comedians have had something sad in their past, and use humour as a defence mechanism, bullies often have an inferiority complex, and men who like romantic movies will make an extra effort to criticize their wife's/girlfriend's favourite 'chick flick'!


Other characters, too, have very relatable motivations and subsequent characterizations, with the stark contrast between the characters of Demi Moore and Jack Nicholson standing out. Moore is a righteous Atticus-Finch-wannabe who believes that the 'code red' was, in fact, an order from Nicholson, who has since washed his hands off the situation, and is throwing the accused under the bus. He is a megalomaniac who believes that his country's very freedom is a direct result of his actions, and that that gives him slack that doesn't apply to lesser mortals.




The story takes its time to build the tension, switching from absolute insubordination by the accused toward Cruise (his own lawyer!) for trying to 'cut a deal' to the defence attorney team discussing courtroom strategy. The tension mounts as the trial begins, and provides a great platform which is more about different values clashing, rather than just characters talking - another hallmark of a great movie. Things don't go the defence's way, and the viewer is at the edge of his/her seat when, eventually, in a desperate attempt, Jack Nicholson is called to the stand as a witness - Cruise hoping to coerce a confession out of him! And Jack really shines here, sidestepping each of Cruise's accusations with equal parts arrogance and acumen. It culminates in the famous 'You can't handle the truth!' monologue, which is listed by many to be one of the greatest lines in cinema, eventually tying up the story in a satisfactory fashion, with a mini-twist added in the end for added pleasure.

The movie earned several accolades, including Oscar nominations for 'best picture' and 'best actor in a supporting role' (for the inimitable Jack Nicholson), but that's not why I believe one ought to watch this movie. It's because I believe that this story will reach out to our conscience, and make us think about our judgement, of what we regard as right and wrong - and that doesn't happen everyday!

Talking Guns

' ... The pen is mightier than the sword ...', or so they say. Practically, though, one finds oneself fascinated by the gun - the modern day iteration of the sword. My knowledge of guns would pale away in comparison to many in the west, especially the US given the preponderance of guns there. Nevertheless a brief look at weapons evolution and an examination of some of the most famous ones would be interesting. Don't worry, this is not going to be a history lesson, merely a collection of my thoughts.

In the (animated) movie 'Gotham Knight' Batman, speaking of guns, says "... I'd never use one, but even I can appreciate the attraction of a gun. The heft. The sleekness. The cool steel. The precision. And the power, the power to change lives, history - the power of God!" This is a really cool statement, which communicates, in a nutshell, why guns are so cool!



One doesn't have to be a history major to know that guns are, in relation to human evolution as a whole, a fairly recent phenomenon. In the early days, the closest man got to a gun was perhaps the bow and arrow. The principle was simple - transfer energy from one object (the bow, in this case) through the bowstring to the projectile (the arrow, in this case). Several variations of the bow and arrow existed, each using a different sources of the energy source. While catapults used the elastic energy of the 'throwing arm' trebuchets used the energy from the weight of heavy stones, in each case the energy was transferred to a projectile intended for the enemy.



While the basic principle remains the same in the guns of today, their evolution didn't actually begin until the advent of a special branch of science - chemistry. The true predecessor of the modern gun is the cannon, used worldwide in the medieval battlefield. A cylindrical barrel, closed at one end, contains a close fitting projectile inside near the closed end. Between the projectile (the shot) and the end of the barrel is the new 'energy source' - a chemical mixture that is designed to be explosive, the Gunpowder. When the explosion is set off (by setting fire to this gunpowder), the gases from this reaction have nowhere to go except toward the open end of the barrel, pushing the projectile as they expand. The projectile leaves the barrel at a high speed - point it at the right direction, and you can injure a person pretty far away. Ingenious minds miniaturized this into the musket, which quickly became the most advanced personal weapon of its time - immortalized by Alexandre Dumas in 'The Three Musketeers'.



The next major evolutionary step for guns came in the form of the Cartridge (not the one in your printer). The groundbreaking idea of the cartridge is astoundingly simple - combine the projectile and the chemical mixture into a single unit encased in a shell, with a well placed 'primer' which, when struck, would produce the spark that would ignite the mixture, sending the projectile on its way. Why exactly was this groundbreaking? Simply because before the arrival of the cartridge, the user needed to clean the barrel, put in some gunpowder, load the shot (projectile), pack it in tightly, and then ignite the mixture - repeat: till either your enemy is no longer standing or you yourself aren't (you could always run and hide, but you'll likely be shot by your own people if you do so). With a cartridge, repeat firing became increasingly easy. The nomenclature evolved into 'bullet', 'slug', and 'shot', among several other monikers. It wasn't long before multiple bullets were encased in a box (a.k.a. magazine), with a spring helping the loading of the next one in the barrel, leading to the development of automatic weapons.

Several innovations helped further develop this technology and improve the potency of weapons. The revolver and the pistol gave a new lease of life to the mobility of weapons. While machine guns forever changed the face of war. Where assault rifles like the AK-47 have powered nations and extremist groups alike, tanks form the new frontlines of battle. A view on some of the important weapons of today is warranted here.

The Hand Gun
Encompassing revolvers (which have a rotary set of chambers containing one bullet each) and pistols (which have a spring loaded magazine, lending most of them 'automatic' i.e. the next bullet automatically loads upon firing the last one) handguns are ubiquitous as sidearms of soldiers and law enforcers, and in American homes (an amendment in their constitution gives every citizen there a RIGHT to own a firearm/weapon). Famous brands include Glock, Beretta, FN Herstal, Smith & Wesson, Walther, SIG, Colt and Magnum, among others.



The Assault Rifle
Two of the greatest assault rifles are the AK47 and the M16, which almost became symbols of the Soviets and the Americans respectively during the cold war. What they were emulating, however, was a German WW2 weapon of legendary status - the Sturmgewehr (think I got the spelling right, and your guess is as good as mine about its pronunciation!). This weapon was (relatively) light, reliable, and, most importantly, deadly on the battlefield. Mikhail Kalashnikov (legendary creator of the AK 47), set about creating a reliable assault rifle that would be a fitting reply to the Germans' main weapon. Although the AK 47 arrived a little late to affect WW2, its effect on history is hardly in question. The M16 was developed by America as a response to the AK - packing lesser punch, but far more accurate. Other famous assault rifles include the German G36 and the Belgian/British L1A1 (a.k.a. the self loading rifle, SLR, and the light machine gun, LMG), among several others.



The Machine Gun
Tracing its origins to the Gatling gun of the American Civil war, the machine gun is now seen (in various avatars) on ships to fend off enemy aircraft that come in too close, on aircraft to hit other aircraft as well as ground targets, and is fitted on a myriad variety of land based battle machines - from jeeps and Humvees to tanks. Perhaps the most famous machine gun is the Browning, with several evolutionary variants still in service today, while the 'gatling type' mini-guns are found on several weapons platforms including ships, helicopters and bombers. The Gatling type gun is distinctive in its appearance, with multiple barrels arranged in a circle, and each barrel taking turns to load the next cartridge and unload its projectile. Modern variants are known to fire up to 4500 rounds per minute! A mini-gun was famously used by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the movie Terminator 2: Judgement day, standing at a window, raining bullets on the policemen below - bloody cool scene!



The Sniper Rifle
Snipers are cool! They patiently wait, until the time is right, and then - bang! From the 'Deadshot' character in Batman comics, to the Soviet Vassily Zaitsev in WW2 (can be seen in the movie 'Enemy at the Gates'), to the 'shoot-through-the-scope' sniper in 'Saving Private Ryan', to a much-fictionalized Chris Kyle in Clint Eastwood's 'American Sniper', the sniper is often able to pique one's curiosity unlike any other weapon. The American M series (M24, M40 and the M82 Barrett), the Soviet Dragunov, the German PSG-1, the British Enfield come to mind, among several others.



Several other variants of guns exist, and the public interest in them shows no signs of waning. My own interest in them is often viewed as morbid, but I believe that a neutral observer (neither pacifist nor warmonger) would admit that Guns are pretty d*** fascinating.

Fathoming 'Interstellar' - Nolan's latest tribute to moviegoers.

Never has a movie, that has affected me so deeply, been so less appreciated - relatively speaking, of course. Previous movies that I've greatly liked - Saving Private Ryan, Terminator 2, Fight Club, Dark Knight - are all universally loved. Why, then, has this movie failed to woo all alike? One possible reason is that the movie appears to be - to the 'un-initiated' - a 'cinematic convenience' that doesn't belong in an otherwise 'scientific' movie. This blog entry is an attempt to help make more sense of this movie.

Human space exploration: The reality today
The unfortunate fact of space exploration today is that lesser and lesser resources are being devoted today to the exploration of the Universe beyond our planet. It was only a few decades ago that nations were racing against one another to go farther - 'where no man has gone before'. The soviets sent the first satellite into orbit, first moon probe, and landed objects on Venus, while the US landed probes on Mars, and men on the Moon. It isn't difficult to fathom that people back then started predicting the date by which we will explore more planets - hopefully even beyond our solar system. Today, sadly, things are different. We haven't gone beyond Mars or Venus, and traveling to other stars only happens in Star Trek and Superman movies. The reasons for this decline can be classified into two categories - money and science. The problems associated with money are pretty obvious - there is very little you can derive in the short (enough) term that could justify putting money on such projects, at least not in the current 'quarter on quarter' business scenario.The science part comes from Einstein's General theory of relativity - which limits the speed at which you can move across space. At our current 'fastest possible' speeds, we take a few months to reach Mars, and the nearest star would take thousands of years to reach. It's like you have to travel a distance of 10,000 miles, but you're limited to a speed of one inch per month.

First, let's understand the 'science stuff' in the movie
Let me begin by stating that I am, by no means, an expert on this matter. However, as a lay person who understood the movie, I believe I do have something to say that would enable others, like me, to get a perspective on the movie. Several concepts of physics are touched upon in this movie: Black holes, which are real, and wormholes which, at this point in time, are purely theoretical. And then there is the 'bending' or 'squeezing' of space time - the whole 'one hour = 7 years' thing. And finally, the Tesseract - not as it's shown in the 'Avengers' movie - but the actual scientific one. 

Wormholes
A wormhole (technically an Einstein Rosen bridge) is a theoretical construct that allows us to go to a different place in space - without having to travel the full distance. Think of a worm trying to crawl from the top of an apple to the bottom. If it is only allowed to travel on the surface of the apple, it has to travel across the entire circumference (well, half of it) to reach the bottom. However, if a hole is drilled from top to bottom through the apple, then the worm has to travel far lesser distance to reach the same spot. Assuming a spherical apple which is 4 inches wide, distance travelled via the surface would be about 6.28 inches, while the distance through the drilled hole would be only 4 inches - lesser distance equals lesser time.A wormhole in space, similarly, would enable travel through a 'shortcut' - thus preventing the need to travel the full distance and thereby saving time.

Time is relative
This is a concept that, in varying degree, is now known to most of us. Time occurs at different speeds in different points of space. This 'space-time' is an important concept that one needs to wrap one's head around. The premise is that time, in that how fast or slow it moves, is a function of where one is in space. Gravity will make time go faster! Now, to a person in that gravitational field, time will appear to move 'at its own pace'. It will be faster relative to (and hence the moniker 'relativity', you see) a person in a weaker gravity. This phenomenon, again, is not theoretical, but 100% real: the satellites used by GPS have to take this into account since they're farther from the earth's gravity than we - on it's surface - are. This is called 'Time Dilation'.


Black holes
Unlike wormholes which are purely theoretical, black holes actually exist. The reigning theory on their formation is that they come from large stars. Stars are the most massive objects, the ones with the strongest gravity, in the known universe. A large enough star, therefore, would have enough gravity to cause the entire mass of the star to collapse in on itself, leading to the formation of a black hole - something with gravity so strong that nothing can escape it, not even light. Actually, that last statement is a bit misleading because it would suggest that light can 'escape' other objects. The fact is that light will bend - much like it does when it goes through a glass or lens - around any gravity. This phenomenon, called 'Gravitational Lensing' is observed all the time (one of the groundbreaking predictions of Einstein's theory of relativity), and a black hole is where light is bent until it 'breaks' i.e. sucked right in. When we 'see' an object, we only perceive the light given out by that object. Since a black hole gives out no visible light, one wouldn't really know what they would 'look' like. Light is, however, only one part of the story. Since gravity affects time, a black hole would 'squeeze' time to a point where 'fast' and 'slow' passage of time no longer mean anything. A point where, conceivably, one could look at building a five-dimensional object - the Tesseract.


Tesseract
The question to ask about a 'four dimensional' cube is this: Why the extra dimension? Why are the regular, three dimensions not enough? It's like this: Imagine that you lived in a one-dimensional world i.e. you could only move in one direction. If you needed to 'bend' that space and create a wormhole in this uni-dimensional world, you would need be in a second dimension to be able to access those points that one would want to bring closer than they are in that one dimension. Similarly, one would need to go into a higher dimension to be able to create a wormhole in our, three dimensional space. The tesseract, however, isn't just a four-dimensional object. It can actually access five dimensions, with time being a dimension that already exists in our world, which is hence a four-dimensional world - making the tesseract a five-dimensional object. By allowing one to access all four dimensions (from the fifth dimension) one could theoretically see the entire life of a person all at once. This is all theoretical, of course, but not exactly fictional like dragons or fairies, it's fully based in science.

Coming back to Interstellar (spoilers ahead)
If one was looking for a new planet to settle on, one would have to travel to another star that it is orbiting - one that morphed into a black hole, perhaps. Hence the phenomenon of time passing faster in one of those planets The only way to travel to such a planet would conceivably be only through a wormhole. Since wormholes haven't been observed in the natural universe thus far, this particular one has perhaps been created by beings who have access to the fifth dimension. And also that gravity is the only thing that reaches across all dimensions. Any communication through time - i.e. reaching back to someone in the past, or future - would therefore be via gravity, appearing as gravitational anomalies in that point of space time. The 'ghost' in the girl's room, is McConaughey 'reaching out' through gravity: first, to try and push her to convince her dad (that's himself) to stay, and then, once he realizes that he can't change the past, puts in the information necessary to ensure that they reach NASA in the first place, then the information regarding the black hole that would allow them to get everybody off the earth. Their proximity to the black hole - first to visit that watery planet, and then to slingshot around it - explains the reason why the protagonist hardly ages while his daughter ages from a teenager to nearly her deathbed.

Interstellar is a brilliant movie, it brings together several scientific challenges associated with space travel along with a very human story. Some of the concepts used have never been seen by us humans, and yet have painted a vision of wormholes and black holes that, physicists agree, is probably the way they would actually look. This is nothing short of a cinematic milestone, and ought to have been more recognized.