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I knew ONE KILL from a while because it was uploaded on YouTube few days after the death of the lead Anne Heche, and since it stars one of the actors of which I try to watch all his available movies last April I finally gave it a try. If you wanna know why I wrote that summary please read the following text.

Captain Mary Jane O'Malley (Heche) is a divorced female marine officer that lives with her two children and starts an affair with Major Nelson Gray (Sam Shepard) but things turn bad when she discovers that he is married and when she wants to stop the relationship he won't accept it and Gray will force himself on O'Malley until she shoots at him when he forced his way in her house. After this the movie moves to the court room proceedings and we find out that there is a cover up by the base officers that refuse to let Gray's reputation on the ground until Captain Walter Randall (Eric Stoltz) comes to her defense.

The idea wasn't that bad, and the acting was good by all. But what ruined the movie were some of the actions by our lead. If Nelson Gray was married, why captain O'Malley had to start her relationship since it brought the consequences of Gray that didn't want to leave her and forced his way on her? Talk about hair-brained thinking. Second, I really hated that the superior officers didn't want to accept that she killed the Major for self defense up until Randall came to her defense.

Overall, a TV movie easy to be skipped because of the aforementioned reasons. Only of interest for fans of the stars or if you love to see movies that give bad messages and rot your brain.

In "One Kill" Heche, Stoltz, and Sherpard form a solid core cast around which swirl the events in this docudrama about a Marine Corps murder trial. The story of a Woman Marine (Heche) who shot her lover to death in her bedroom is laid out and developed by trial flick rote. As the characters begin dealing with the matter of trial, the facts behind the case unfold piecemeal via flashback. Taken in the whole, "One Kills" offers nothing new and the story of a love affair gone sour and a corps cover up aren't particularly compelling. Nonetheless, the film offers excellent performances with considerable dramatic clout. Recommended for trial flick junkies and those interested in military courts-martial.

This could have been a good TV-movie, but the flashbacks do not make it easier to understand the movie. As they give the viewer informations on the way (will the movie proceeds) i found myself wondering why she never said or mentioned that in the beginning. Then the whole trail would probably not have been necessary.

When the movie ends you understand why she shot, and of course she is not guilty. Too bad that the producer/director used the flashbacks this way, but on the other had the movie would not have been worth while at all.

Nice movie for a rainy day, big bag of chips to kill the evening.

This movie reminded me of the live dramas of the 1950s- not like the recent "Failsafe", which seemed more of a stunt than anything else, but a TRUE moral drama that is both engaging and thought-provoking. Anne Heche is more than credible as the army officer having an affair with her superior, played by Sam Shepard, and Eric Stoltz is wonderful as her lawyer defending her against the military establishment. I found myself waiting for THEIR affair to begin, if only because they look so good together. This movie is apparently based on a true story, and it's a relief to be asked to think about real issues for a change.

Directed by Christopher Menaul, who also did The Passion of Ayn Rand (with Stolz) and the Prime Suspect series, this is a movie with panache and style and is absolutely worth seeing.

Certainly this film has the ring of truth about it, as it purports to be based on actual occurrences at a Marine base. It deals with the attempted cover-up by the local Marine commander of unacceptable conduct by a Marine major which resulted in his being shot to death by his former girl friend, a Marine captain. The man and woman had been lovers, but the captain attempted to break off the relation when she discovered her boy friend was married. He continued to stalk her, going so far as to fire his side arm in her direction at one time. Finally he broke into her home, attacked her with a knife, and was shot twice with her service pistol and killed. The civilian prosecutor ruled the killing self defense, but the Marines decided to charge the captain with murder. The major, you see, was a decorated hero from Vietnam, and an old friend of the commanding colonel at the Marine base. The captain, too, had made some enemies in her motor pool command, rejecting some male advances in a very butch style.

There is considerable psychological freight motivating and controlling the actions of the principal participants in this drama, which the very capable cast gets across nicely. The director and editor, however, seem determined to obscure the happenings as much as possible with frustrating flashbacks and shifting points of view. You're lucky if you know where you're at most of the time. Bear with them, though; it's a worthwhile story as the captain's court martial trial unfolds, and it seems every man's hand is against her, even her attorney at times.

The verdict? Well, after all, this is rather a suspense story, so you'll have to see for yourself. There is a kind of "pacifist" message folded into the film, but forget about that. Sure, "war is hell", but sometimes it can't be avoided. We'll need those Marines then, even if they aren't always the best champions of fair play internally. As Kipling says in his poem "Tommy Atkins":

"It's Tommy this and Tommy that, And Tommy wait outside. But, it's room for Mr. Atkins, When the troopship's on the tide."