!The film
* AluminumChristmasTrees: The prosecution calls a former North Vietnamese soldier as a witness, who testifies about Childers having executed a prisoner during the Vietnam War. A controversial moment... but less so than the US Navy calling [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochitsura_Hashimoto#McVay_court-martial Commander Mochitsura Hashimoto]] to testify against American Captain Charles [=McVay=], on trial for negligence after Hashimoto torpedoed and sunk his ship.
* HarsherInHindsight: An incident similar to the film's prologue occurred during the [[UsefulNotes/TheWarOnTerror Iraq War]], where a group of US marines [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallujah_killings_of_April_2003 fired upon]] a group of protesting Iraqi civilians in Fallujah, believing that they were fired upon first. As the evidence was inconclusive, the marines were never charged. Unlike the film however, the shootings led to severe consequences for the US military, including several retaliatory killings and the First Battle of Fallujah in 2004, where Coalition forces were driven out of the city. Coalition forces eventually retook the city from Iraqi insurgents during the Second Battle of Fallujah later in the year.
* OvershadowedByControversy: The film has been criticized by the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee and [[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/aug/11/1 several]] [[https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/aug/11/2 reviewers]] for allegedly promoting an anti-Arab and anti-Muslim perspective. In particular, they argued that film conveys the message that indiscriminate shootings of anti-American civilians are justifiable, if American lives are at stake. Furthermore, Childers' torture of prisoners of war in Vietnam is deemed as acceptable, simply because the North Vietnamese colonel admitted that he would have done the same to save lives. Paramount eventually released a statement noting that "the film is not an indictment of any government, culture or people."

!The TV Series
* AlternativeCharacterInterpretation:
** Is Jennifer the OnlySaneMan being pushed to her breaking point from dealing with an idiot boyfriend, apathetic neighbors and a lecherous acquaintance, or does she hang out with these people to indulge her superiority complex?
** Did Russell greencard-marry Timmy out of kindness, or to indulge his homoerotic sense of dependency on him? Jeff admits that this is his interpretation of Russell.
* BaseBreakingCharacter: Timmy and Russell, due to the fandom being split between which one it considers TheScrappy and EnsembleDarkhorse, whether it's both of them, or is it neither?
* EnsembleDarkhorse: Timmy's hilarious interactions with Russell quickly got him promoted to series regular.
* FridgeHorror:
** Adam's stupidity might be the result of minor brain-damage, due to the possibility that his Hippie mother continued to take mind-expanding drugs during pregnancy! Considering what we see of her, there is ''nothing'' that rules this possibility out!
%%Evidence of Jennifer's porn-career surfaces at the end of an episode.
** Adam and Jennifer are portrayed as being very much in love, but there's plenty of evidence that they secretly hate each other and their relationship is purely superficial. How long will their marriage last when their looks fade away?
* GrowingTheBeard: Many fans agree that the show became more entertaining after it started focusing primarily on Jeff and Audrey.
* HollywoodHomely:
** Liz is treated as being hideously ugly and extremely overweight when she is neither. Later seasons focus more on her unpleasant personality, and criticisms of her body are limited to what cannot be seen on screen (such as having one breast longer than the other)
** Also applies slightly when Adam and Jennifer film themselves having sex and are disgusted when they watch it. While a lot of their disgust revolves around the awkwardness of their sex, they take the time to remark how awful they look. Adam remarks that he needs to hit the gym and Jennifer shouts, "We are not tan!,"... even though they clearly are.
* HoYay:
** Adam and Jeff or Adam and other:
*** Adam is fascinated by Jeff's half-naked looks on an old photo, and wants Jeff to find him good-looking on the similar photo he had made of himself. He also asked Jeff to do like he was Audrey.
*** Jeff introduced Adam to the idea of getting special birthday sex from his lady. Adam decided to take it as a challenge and that he could get a better deal. Wording it poorly, he said "every year I'm doing it, I'll be thinking of you." The next day they're openly discussing birthday deals and Adam announces that he has two, loudly asking Jeff "Is my two a little hard for you to swallow?" which turns a few heads.
*** Russell steals the homemade love coupons Adam made for Jennifer, placing them into coworker's stockings, and no one will give them back to Adam unless he agrees to fulfill the coupon's contents like an obligational contract. He ends up giving one guy a massage, doing a slow dance with a gay coworker, and it's implied that will do something very raunchy with the same guy do get back the coupon he wanted to give Jennifer the most.
*** Adam is embarrassing Jen at a full cafe by showing off his cheerleading skills. His last cheer is "We're pirate, not sailors, but pirates, but pirates. There's no need to remind us" ::shakes his ass:: "That the football team's behind us." which amuses Russell and Timmy greatly.
** Timmy and Russell are the worst of friends with a Schadenfreude relationship and frequently sabotage each other's dates. However, Russell accidentally hitting on Timmy is a running gag throughout the series that starts almost immediately after Timmy is introduced in season 3 and culminates spectacularly in the finale episode.
*** Russell attends a party he made Timmy beg to get an invite for and thanks the host by hitting on the guest of honor's girlfriend. When confronted, Russell says he couldn't have hit on her because he's Timmy's boyfriend. When Timmy loudly dumps him, the guest of honor hooks Russell up with his gay friend Matt.
*** When Timmy is dating Allison and gets cut off from the psychical aspect of the relationship, Russell points out that Timmy is sexually frustrated and offers to "help relieve the pressure," and Timmy said he didn't care how soft and ladylike his hands were, no.
*** In season 3, when Timmy gets tired of Russell wasting his time on setting up dates and working on cancelled projects, he decided to work for Audrey, who's growing increasingly irritated with her secretary. It's played off and worded intentionally to sound as if Timmy was cheating on Russell and Audrey is cheating on Tanya. Russell is swayed back in Russell's favor when their "2 month anniversary" is brought up, and Audrey says "You're never going to leave him, are you?"
*** In one episode, Timmy and Russell have their hands on each other's knees under the table mistaking each other for their dates and hold hands, even after their dates leave. Timmy tells Jeff and Adam about it, much to Russell's dismay. By the end of the episode, Jeff, Adam, Audrey, and Jennifer watch Timmy and Russell get stuck in an extremely suggestive position on a rolling chair after tripping while playing Mannequin Head Hockey in a cookie shop.
*** Russell gets a girlfriend who is Timmy's DistaffCounterpart. At one point, Russell tells Timmy that Indians with British-accents are his "type," backed up by the time he chased after Timmy's arranged fiance, and encourages his girlfriend to look more and more like Timmy. Later, he accidentally hits on Timmy.
*** Russell asks Timmy to marry him in the last episode, to keep him from begin deported. When the pastor asks if they want to seal it with a kiss, Russell puckers up and closes in, but Timmy's not having it. Jeff makes it known that he always suspected Russell was gay for Timmy, that now it's legal and not just in his head.
*** Looking at Jeff and Audrey's baby in the finale, Russell asked Timmy if they should adopt one. Timmy said he wasn't ready to be a father. Russell joked that Timmy would be the mom.
* JerkassWoobie: While Russell is a womanizing creep, he earns some sympathy when Audrey tells him that her sister doesn't feel the same way about him as he does towards her. Although Russell tries to play it cool, it's obvious that he's completely heartbroken by the news, with Audrey's sister being one of the few women Russell had [[LadykillerInLove genuine feelings for]].
* SoOkayItsAverage: This seems to be the general opinion of television critics regarding the show. When the show was canceled in May of 2013, many journalists noted their surprise that the show managed to last for seven seasons due to the fact that it never had high ratings and it had narrowly avoided being canceled several times before. Other people have remarked that while many people ''like'' the show, virtually nobody considers it to be their ''favorite'' show. As the show ended, the response was still the same, describing it as a solid show that never really set the world on fire, but did have a steady, dependable run that gave them a deep enough episode count to, again, have a steady, dependable (and therefore highly profitable) run in syndication.
%%ShipsThatPassInTheNight: Russell and Audrey's sister.
* TheWoobie: Adam becomes this in the later seasons. He's so naive and good-natured that he honestly believes that Russell and Jeff are his friends, when in reality they just like to make fun of him.

!The VisualNovel/ChoicesStoriesYouPlay Visual Novel
* BaseBreakingCharacter:
** Audrey. She's either a great friend and a ManicPixieDreamGirl for Nicole, an adorable LoveInterest for her, or an annoying sidekick shoehorned in Nicole's CharacterDevelopment.
** Mira is either a good antagonist to Jess, or a needed {{foil}} figure in her subplot. Her being PromotedToLoveInterest is either seen as a good addition or another attempt of Pixelberry to have an obligatory GayOption.
** In ''Newlyweds'', fans had this opinion of Elena. She had all the reasons to be mad at Alex for not telling her [[spoiler:that he was briefly married long before they got together]], or that she was overreacting, ruining the whole weekend for Katie and the rest of Alex's family with her bad mood.
* JerksAreWorseThanVillains: Many readers (mostly on Reddit) complained more about Audrey's selfishness towards Nicole and expressed hatred towards the former, saying how she's the worst character in the series despite Aunt Mallory doing ''way worse'' than Audrey, as stated below.
* MoralEventHorizon: Aunt Mallory crossed it ''many times'' during the three books, from trying to sabotage her own daughter and her nephew and nieces on getting their inheritance, but two moments are worth mentioning.
** [[spoiler:After finding out Violet was pregnant and about to be a single mother without a job, she arranged for her baby to be given away to a foster family ''without even telling Violet''.]] Violet understandably got mad and disowned her.
** Even if she didn't intend for this to go incredibly wrong, [[spoiler:putting a hole in Katie's boat so she can't get to her own wedding definetely qualifies as the most despicable thing she has ever done in the books (which is something considering that she gave ''real weapons'' to children just to get Jess fired, or how she treats Violet, ''her own daughter'', in general). Violet rightfully calls her out by saying "What did you expect? That the boat was going to grow wings and float her to safety?!"]]
* TheScrappy:
** Paolo. Even after getting the Premium Choice to sleep with him, he still betrays Nicole by stealing her badge, and only got the internship because she rejected it. Many of the fans chose to reject his apologies ''twice''.
** Aunt Mallory not only does everything in her power to make her nephew, nieces ''and her own daughter'' fail at getting their inheritances, but all the things she does to accomplish this are despicable (detailed in MoralEventHorizon above). It's not helped by her having a FreudianExcuse towards Nana [[KarmaHoudini and still getting together with Bartholomew Pierce and barely getting a slap in the wrist after all her actions]].
* SeasonalRot: Book 3 is regarded as the most stretched from the three books, making Katie's wedding planning unnecesarily long. What takes the cake on this regard is the Epilogue "Newlyweds", which doesn't give a good story to Katie, Jess and Nicole, Alex's entire subplot is resolved in one brief scene, after Elena spent ''three'' episodes being bitchy about it, and consists on five chapters of pure {{filler}}. Many fans of the books even regard this epilogue as needless.
* UnintentionallyUnsympathetic:
** Nana became this for some of the readers. While it’s later revealed that she tried to trigger some character development on her grandchildren, she ends up coming off as controlling even after her passing, like forcing Alex and Katie marry their partners (granted, she didn’t know Trent was cheating on Katie and Elena was never Alex’s girlfriend, but it's still imposing her own timeline and desires on their relationships and not allowing for the possibility that the relationships might encounter problems as Katie's did), resulting in Katie marrying her eventual husband after only knowing him for less than three months (and luckily this turned into a HappilyMarried, which is a ''very rare'' outcome given the circumstances), pulling a BaitAndSwitch on Jess by making her think she was getting a vacation only to spring it on her that she'd be spending the summer working a menial job instead (while the rest of her family ''did'' get to enjoy the promised vacation, no less)[[note]]which is also silly because if she gets the inheritance, her ability to keep a job becomes irrelevant[[/note]], shoving Nicole way out of her comfort zone because she thinks she knows what's "best" for her, and making Violet think that her own inheritance was in the hands of the cousins who hated her. Not to mention that many of the tasks depended on a certain amount of things going their way, but she has no caveat for circumstances beyond their control interfering. Later it's revealed that she treated Mallory as TheUnfavorite. She also fought Mallory for custody of Katie and her siblings and, more importantly, didn't bother to tell Mallory why, so Mallory just took it as another insult.
** Tying with her status as TheScrappy, Aunt Mallory has a FreudianExcuse that's supposed to make readers feel sympathy for her. At the same time, however, she continues to abuse and manipulate her daughter, put others in harm's way without remorse, and expects everyone to feel sympathetic towards her, effectively erasing any sort of sympathy readers had for her.
** Leo comes off as this given the way that he largely distances himself from his family until it suits him to invoke the relationship, never once expressing concern for their welfare when he barges in to ask for a political favor in Book 2. The events of ''VisualNovel/TheRoyalRomance'' Book 2 and 3 (which takes place after ''Rules of Engagement'', but seemingly not by much) make him even more this, as Leo is conspicuously absent while his brother and family are dealing with political fallout, [[spoiler:assassination attempts, and the death of their father King Constanstine]], never showing up to offer help or even moral support.
** A Premium choice in Book 2 reveals the start of Katie and Trent's relationship from his perspective. It was pretty clear that, in addition to her family being cold (Jess and Nicole) or even outright hostile (Alex) to him, Katie put forth no effort into the relationship.
* VanillaProtagonist: Compared to the rest of her siblings, Katie is this, as aside from her relationship issues and reactions to the things that happen in the books, she barely shows any distinct personality traits and quirks throughout and more or less acts as an AudienceSurrogate most of the time. This lead to many readers finding her arc boring, and the fair amount of times when Katie does something rather stupid and foolish doesn't help her case on these detractors.[[note]]Interestingly, this (and other reasons mentioned above and the one below) actively lead to Katie and Audrey being hated on online more by fans than actual villainous characters like Paolo and Mallory in the series.[[/note]]
* {{Wangst}}: Katie only having cold feet not because of the realistic consequences of only knowing her new fiancé for less than two months, but because she discovered that [[BrokenPedestal her parents' marriage wasn’t perfect]]. What added more to her detractors is the premium flashback from Trent's perspective, where it's revealed that, in addition of his growing insecurities, Katie did very little effort to keep their relationship alive.