A vastly overrated dud

Rating: Null/10 (4 July 2002)

The sentiments are no doubt very worthy, but since when can sentiments alone make a good film? I guess Kubrick's budget could not be stretched for a longer exposition, but how about a little more subtlety? The opening scene with the dialogue between the two generals, each with his own agenda, is so naively straightforward it would have been laughed offstage at a high school drama class performance. Menjou just about carries off his part by not being too serious about it, but Macready would certainly have benefited from a director who knew what he was after. Douglas is OK, but he is not given much to do, and what should have been his big scene - the court-martial - is so underwritten, one wonders if it was improvised over a cigarette between lunch and the afternoon shoot. Kubrick dots all the i's and crosses all the t's with an almost bizarre simple-mindedness: his hero is obviously heroic, his villains obviously villainous; he also has an honest corporal who annoys a rascally lieutenant who accidentally kills a heroic soldier. And he has the general's slippery aide, a matter-of-fact sergeant who is simply doing his job, and a whining coward who turns to religion. So much for characterization. OK, I will not carp about the trenches set being so cheap - by that time K. had not yet hypnotized Warner Bros. into giving him a carte-blanche for stretching the genius muscle, - but give me a break about that final scene. It has to be the lamest, cheapest banality ever committed to celluloid. I see the film is #30 on the list of the all-time greatest; all right, let me guess then: #1 must be Attack of the Clones.