snubbed by the AFI

Rating: 9/10 (11 May 2004)

A plausible antiwar film, considered a top film at imdb and theyshoot pictures.com (229 out of 1000 on their list), but snubbed by the AFI's top 100, despite being called a "miracle" by Jonathan Rosenbaum
Why? Its about how a grave injustice is carried out because of political expediency. Made somewhat more believable by casting it in the French Army in WW1 (where in that legal system the presumption was guilty until proven innocent), and perhaps to partly side step the blatant antiwar message for Hollywood bankrollers and the American Audience. A futile attack is engineered playing on the ambitions of an unscrupulous officer, and when the attack on a strong enemy position, with a depleted force, is predictably repulsed, scapegoats are identified to be tried for cowardice. Not only a good performance by Kirk Douglas as the righteously indignant defense attorney, but the villains in the film are totally despicable, which they are supposed to be. Kubrick's portrayal of trench warfare is every bit as good as All Quiet on the Western Front, and his contrasting of the circumstances of the officers' lives and of the bizarre trial standing next to the brutality of the war and the insanity of the majority of the frontal assaults is pure Kubrick. One sees the seeds of Dr. Strangelove.