History Film / TheGeneralsDaughter

* ScienceMarchesOn: a major plot point in this movie. DNA testing only became accepted in American courts 1992, [[spoiler: the same year Elizabeth Campbell was raped.]] The Army leadership considered the crime to be unsolvable and chose to cover it up. [[spoiler: the threat of contemporary DNA testing methods convinces a suspect to identify the rapists.]]

* WellIntentionedExtremist: the Army generals who covered up the rape at West Point. The rape was considered unsolvable (indeed, forensic DNA testing had only been accepted in American courts in ''1992'', the same year the rape took place) and the generals chose to cover it up rather than risk the Academy's reputation destroyed by an unsolvable rape. The rape in question was not solved for seven years, when the threat of a DNA test spooked a witness (if not a rapist himself) to rat out the rapists.

* AdaptationNameChange: In the novel, Capt. Campbell's first name is Ann rather than Elizabeth. Similarly, Brenner's partner is named Cynthia in the novel, not Sara.

''The General's Daughter'' is a 1999 mystery thriller film, directed by Simon West. It was loosely based on a 1992 novel of the same name by Nelson De Mille.

The titular character is Captain Elizabeth Campbell (Leslie Stefanson), a specialist in psychological operations. She is the daughter of Lieutenant General Joseph Campbell (Creator/JamesCromwell), an ambitious man with political aspirations. Father and daughter serve in a Georgia Army Base. Early in the film, Campbell's nude body is found staked down with tent poles, strangled, and presumably raped. Warrant officers Paul Brenner (Creator/JohnTravolta) and Sara Sunhill (Madeline Stowe) are called in to investigate.

* UndyingLoyalty: [[spoiler:Colonel Fowler was tasked by General Campbell with dealing with Captain Campbell after her explosive confrontation with her father. When he found her dead body, he immediately assumed that the General snapped and killed her in a rage for her humiliating improprieties that damaged his command (as it turns out, Fowler was wrong; the General did not kill her). Instead of reporting what he had seen, he covered up for his superior and later was willing to fall on his sword after Brenner reveals his findings.]]

* PowerfulMenAreSubs: Colonel Moore is shown to have been the submissive party in the late Elizabeth's BDSM play, inverting their official mentor-protegé relationship.

** In the book, the guy Brenner is investigating isn't trying to sell weapons to some RightWingMilitia, but to some group claiming to want to liberate Cuba. Said militia also never comes gunning for Brenner, so there is no fight in the beginning.

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* ArmiesAreEvil: Not exactly, since while this film portrays some of the worse parts of the service, it also shows most of the soldiers themselves are normal, hardworking men and women and that it's just a few bad apples who end up doing all the damage. In a flashback, after [[spoiler: Elizabeth's gangrape by a group of fellow soldiers back at the academy,]] the pair of (male) soldiers who find her are both completely horrified.

* AllForNothing: [[spoiler:One of the General's reasons for the cover up is that they likely would never be able to bring his daughter's assailants to justice, but the detectives are able to bust them all in a few days despite the trail being years old.\\
\\
However, the reasons why Brenner and Sunhill were able to identify the culprits so quickly were all a result of the time lapse. Campbell's former academy psychologist only revealed the name of one of the culprits after he was distraught by being informed of Campbell's death, and the methods used to get that guy to confess and identify the other perpetrators relied on forensic technology having sufficiently developed in the intervening years to make the threat credible. It's open to speculation how successful the investigation would have been if it were carried out immediately after the fact, and if the military would be willing to break medical ethics in regard to the severity of the crime]]. But then again, the point was [[spoiler:the military, General Campbell included, decided that their image of integrity was more important than actually ''having'' integrity. By covering up Elizabeth's rape, they preserved West Point's image, and General Campbell even got a promotion out of it. All it cost them was Elizabeth]].

* {{Foreshadowing}}: While Brenner and Sunhill are looking through Elizabeth's belongings after her death, they see old news photographs of General Campbell holding his daughter in his arms while visiting a recently pacified warzone to prove to the press that the area under his command is now safe. Sunhill notes that the little girl looks terrified. [[spoiler:This foreshadows that Campbell is not above using his daughter to advance his own career, ultimately denying her justice by covering up her rape at West Point for his own advancement in the chain of command]].

** Colonel Moore [[spoiler:being secretly gay, as well as his subsequent suicide.]]
** Brenner and Sunhill managing to solve [[spoiler:the West Point rape.]]

However, the reasons why Brenner and Sunhill were able to identify the culprits so quickly were all a result of the time lapse. Campbell's former academy psychologist only revealed the name of one of the culprits after he was distraught by being informed of Campbell's death, and the methods used to get that guy to confess and identify the other perpetrators relied on forensic technology having sufficiently developed in the intervening years to make the threat credible. It's open to speculation how successful the investigation would have been if it were carried out immediately after the fact, and if the military would be willing to break medical ethics in regard to the severity of the crime.]] But then again, the point was [[spoiler:the military, General Campbell included, decided that their image of integrity was more important than actually ''having'' integrity. By covering up Elizabeth's rape, they preserved West Point's image, and General Campbell even got a promotion out of it. All it cost them was Elizabeth.]]

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Brenner is able to give Elizabeth the justice she deserves at the cost of his own career. But he makes the correct decision in choosing his own integrity over blind loyalty to the military.]]

** The entire reason for Campbell's undermining of her father's position by [[spoiler:seducing most of his staff, as revenge for the cover-up of her rape at West Point.]]

* DaddysGirl: Subverted. We're initially led to believe that Campbell was an archetypal father's daughter military brat who emulated his choosing a career in the army, but as Brenner and Sunhill discover, they viciously hated each other and evolved into mortal enemies because of [[spoiler:him helping cover up her rape at West Point in exchange for a promotion.]]
* DeceasedFallGuyGambit: [[spoiler: Col. Moore's suicide is staged so he can be used as the fall guy.]]
* DrivingQuestion: Beyond the {{Whodunnit}} of Elizabeth Campbell's rape and murder, Colonel Moore expresses the real driving question of the mystery ("What's [[RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil worse than rape]]?") and states that Brenner will truly understand Elizabeth's death once he's discovered the answer. [[spoiler:It's [[TreacheryIsASpecialKindOfEvil personal betrayal]].]]
* EroticAsphyxiation: Elizabeth got up to all kinds of kinky stuff, this included. [[spoiler:There are elements of this in her rape and (consequently) murder, as well, as the perpetrators tied a noose around her neck during the assault, and her cause of death was strangulation.]]
* EvenEvilHasStandards: [[spoiler: General Campbell is a scumbag who profited off his daughter's rape as a means of career advancement, (irreparably damaging her psyche and causing the issues that would later lead to her death) but he's aghast when Colonel Fowler admits to Brenner and Sunhill that he covered up the crime because he believed the general had killed his own daughter.]]

-->'''Colonel Robert Moore:''' Then wouldn't it behoove me to retain the services of an attorney? I know a good one.
-->'''Warrant Officer Paul Brenner, C.I.D.:''' Two problems there. First the obvious: there are no good ones. Second, you're not a civilian, Colonel, you're in the army. You have no rights to an attorney. You have no right to remain silent. And if you don't cooperate I may have to put you in jail and that would make me feel really bad.
* {{Foreshadowing}}: While Brenner and Sunhill are looking through Elizabeth's belongings after her death, they see old news photographs of General Campbell holding his daughter in his arms while visiting a recently pacified warzone to prove to the press that the area under his command is now safe. Sunhill notes that the little girl looks terrified. [[spoiler:This foreshadows that Campbell is not above using his daughter to advance his own career, ultimately denying her justice by covering up her rape at West Point for his own advancement in the chain of command.]]
** Brenner tells Sunhill early on in the film that motives for murder include "profit, revenge, jealousy, to conceal a crime, to avoid humiliation and disgrace, or plain old homicidal mania." [[spoiler: Kent murders Elizabeth out of homicidal mania because she told him he meant nothing to her/jealousy that she was sleeping with other men, and then killed Moore to conceal his crime. Elizabeth did what she did to get revenge on her father, the general, and Colonel Fowler, his aide, helped General Campbell to cover up his involvement so that the general could avoid disgrace. Literally ''everyone's'' motives are covered by this line.]]

* LyingToThePerp: When questioning a suspect [[spoiler:of the gang-rape, Sunhill pulls out a pair of women's underwear in an evidence bag and leads him to believe that they're Captain Campbell's DNA-evidence-filled underwear from the night of the assault. He promptly starts talking about how he tried to stop the rape, and reveals the identities of the other men involved.]]

* ParentalBetrayal: Turns out to be the key element. [[spoiler:General Campbell helped cover up his daughter's rape in exchange for a promotion; he tries to justify it with protecting the honor of West Point, the base where the rape occurred, but he got another star out of it. Elizabeth could probably have recovered from the rape, as she was already smiling at her father when he came back from overseas to visit her. The betrayal was significantly more traumatic, and destroyed her.]]

* PromiscuityAfterRape: Captain Elizabeth Campbell became a sexual deviant after enduring a horrific gang rape years before during her training at West Point. However, this is revealed to be a subversion: [[spoiler:she wanted to get revenge on her father the General, who helped cover up the rape, by seducing most of his staff to embarass him. The main character concludes that this was the real cause of her SanitySlippage, not the rape itself.]]
* RapeAsDrama: The mystery is mostly an excuse. Most of the film focuses on the rape[[spoiler:(s). To the point the murder ends up dismissed as a secondary detail by several characters. As Brenner explains at the end of the film that while Kent killed Elisabeth, in a metaphorical sense her father was the true killer, as he destroyed her as a person with his betrayal]].
* RapeIsASpecialKindOfEvil: Brenner spends the whole movie trying to figure out who killed Elisabeth, which leads to an investigation of her rape [[spoiler:while at West Point which was covered up.]] During his search for truth, he is told by Col. Moore that what happened to her was worse than rape. His response, "What's worse than rape?" is pure this trope. The answer is: [[spoiler:Betrayal. The General agreed to help cover up his daughter's rape in exchange for a promotion.]]

'''Elisabeth''': Very good, First Sergeant. I levied an accusation of sexism at you, and [[ActuallyPrettyFunny you took it three times around the dance floor.]]

* StraightGay: [[spoiler: Col. Moore and his attorney.]]

* ThereAreNoTherapists: Averted. [[spoiler:Campbell's psychologist at West Point did all he could to help her recover from the trauma of the gang-rape and her father's betrayal. It didn't help, as she had already closed herself off to outside support by then.]]

* SmugSnake: General Campbell, as he [[spoiler: sucks up to Brenner when it seems he can bribe him into covering up his own role in hushing up his daughter's rape and later his involvement in the events that lead to her murder. When Brenner makes it clear he's going to have the general court-martialed, all courtesy and respect goes straight out the window and the general tells him that 'he doesn't have the balls.']]

** Brenner tells Sunhill early on in the film that motives for murder include "profit, revenge, jealousy, to conceal a crime, to avoid humiliation and disgrace, or plain old homicidal mania." [[spoiler: Kent murders Elizabeth out of homicidal mania because she told him he meant nothing to her/jealousy that she was sleeping with other men, and then killed Moore to conceal his crime. Elizabeth did what she did to get revenge on her father, the general, and Colonel Fowler, his aide, helped the general to cover up his involvement so General Campbell could avoid disgrace. Literally ''everyone's'' motives are covered by this line.]]

** Brenner tells Sunhill early on in the film that motives for murder include "profit, revenge, jealousy, to conceal a crime, to avoid humiliation and disgrace, or plain old homicidal mania." [[spoiler: Kent murders Elizabeth out of homicidal mania because she told him he meant nothing to her/jealousy that she was sleeping with other men, and then killed Moore to conceal his crime. Elizabeth did what she did to get revenge on her father, the general, and Colonel Fowler, his aide, helped the general to cover up his involvement so he himself could avoid disgrace. Literally ''everyone's'' motives are covered by this line.]]

* BondageIsBad: Captain Campbell's sexual practices (seducing her superiors and then engaging in extreme BDSM sessions with at least one of them) are quickly used to establish that she had become mentally unhinged before her death. Brenner can't even stand to look at the tapes she shot, stating that it couldn't be the same women he met a few days ago.