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• Adaptation Displacement: Not many people know that the movie is based off of a play that written by Sorkin himself.
• Alternative Character Interpretation: Some people take Jessep's courtroom rant as a Take That and a "The Reason You Suck" Speech towards the kind of limousine liberals (who would never dream of joining the military themselves) who sit back and criticize armed might and believe the use of violence against anyone is illegitimate, all the while ostensibly being champions of the people and defenders of human rights and the guardians of the environment and so on, and yet in fact do nothing but talk, and attend parties and live rich and frivolous lifestyles and take in all the material benefits of the society and the system that they claim to oppose and abhor, and finally go to sleep every night under the guard of those same people who they disdain: those people who make personal and psychological sacrifices to defend them. This really only works when extracted from its context, as Jessep is arguably just as much of a hypocrite as they are.
• Complete Monster: Colonel Jessep. He's lionized by an alarming large number of people who cheer his Motive Rant while ignoring that's it coming from a certifiable lunatic who shrugs off the death of the closest thing to a friend he has and plots to have the buck passed for his loathsome actions. His Pet the Dog moments only highlight his loathsomeness.
• Ho Yay: Between Kaffee and Ross. They seem to know each other pretty well, and then there's the whole scene with Cruise sucking on his doughnut-dust-covered finger while Bacon stares him down. And then some of the final lines:
  Ross: Strong witnesses.
  Kaffee: And handsome too, didn't you think?
• It Was His Sled: Colonel Jessep ordered the hazing that led to Santiago's death.
• Misaimed Fandom: The number of viewers who admire Jessep's Motive Rant is staggering. Sure, he's supposed to have depth, and isn't a Card-Carrying Villain but when he says soldiers shouldn't be accountable to the law, you're not supposed to agree with him.
  • At heart, what he was doing was sanctioning assaults against his own Marines and then trying to cover it up.
  • The worst part is that Jessup's breakdown isn't supposed to be the center of the movie - it's supposed to be about the duty of the strong to protect the weak, and how Jessup betrayed that duty when he had a kid brutalized and accidentally killed him for being weak. Nicholson should have been cast as Weinburg, not Jessup, so that he could have put his personality behind it. As is, everybody remembers Jessup talking about necessary evil.
    Lt. Weinberg: They beat up on a weakling, and that's all they did! The rest is just smokefilled coffee-house crap! They tortured and tormented a weaker kid! They didn't like him! So, they killed him! And why? Because he couldn't run very fast!
    Galloway: They stand upon a wall and say, "Nothing's going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch."
    Dawson: We were supposed to fight for the people who couldn't fight for themselves. We were supposed to fight for Willie.
  • These few sentences from the Motive Rant are key: "Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinberg? ... Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post." The idea of either Kaffee or Weinberg doing that is laughable. Had there been even a hint that either man had ever been placed in harm's way, it would've negated this. (It's significant that Jessup doesn't say this about Galloway; partly because he's sexist, but also because one can imagine her doing so.)
  • Also, people in the military are told that civilians have every right to question the way their freedom is defended. To do otherwise would be to imply that fighting for one's country guarantees an automatic right to ignore common morality, regulations and the laws and customs of war, which it simply does not. America wants proud soldiers, not arrogant ones.
• One-Scene Wonder: Colonel Jessup is such an electrifying character and his presence in the film is so strong that it's easy to forget he only appears in a handful of scenes. But each one is pretty astonishing and he is the originator of the film's famous monologue.
• Retroactive Recognition: Percy from Nikita is Kaffey's supervisor in one scene. He even mentions something called "Division".
• Strawman Has a Point: See the above Misaimed Fandom; many viewers side with Colonel Jessep and see his "you need me on that wall" argument as true.