A Brilliant Indictment of the Military Institution

Rating: 10/10 (5 September 2006)

Before indulging in the ponderousness that could mar his otherwise exceptional later films, Stanley Kubrick directed this terse, no-nonsense account of a group of men tried for mutiny during the horrific trench warfare of World War I.
"Paths of Glory" exists mainly as a scathing indictment of the bureaucracy behind the world's wars. The accused men in this film are scapegoats for commanders who failed at their own duties, but in the military, as in the world outside the military, the power resides with a few, and the masses have little power against them.
Kirk Douglas delivers a fierce performance as an officer who sees the injustice and refuses to tolerate it. There's a throbbing human passion in the way he attacks the character, as there is throughout the entire film, somewhat rare for Kubrick, whose later movies would tend toward the emotionally detached.
A surprisingly candid film for its time, "Paths of Glory" would be tough medicine for people to swallow today, when everyone wants to believe that the military establishment has nothing but our best interests at heart. The film suggests that soldiers have as much to fear from their allies within as they do their enemies without.
Grade: A+