Very tough and moving film.

Rating: 10/10 (17 August 2014)

How do you deal with a No-Win situation? Do you move forward knowing that you'll inevitably fail or do you just give up and wait to die? Does it even matter? Can empathy and basic humanity stand up in the face of such a situation(s). These questions and many others stand at the heart of Paths of Glory.
In Paths of Glory Colonel Dax(played by Kirk Douglass) is tasked with leading an assault on a German fortification knowing full well that he will fail. Ultimately though Dax is a good soldier and follows orders. He leads the assault and it fails spectacularly with half of the troops never leaving the trenches. Dax's superior ,General Mireau(played by George Macready), notices that a good portion of the troops never leave the trenches and charges the regiment with cowardice in the face of the enemy(a charge with the penalty of death). Of course this is a complete and utter farce. The men were not cowards they were just men thrust into an impossible situation.
Colonel Dax, being the moral man he is, stands up for his men and defends them in the court-martial. His voice is the only voice of reason in this tragic situation. In spite of his best efforts the men are executed anyway.
I'm not a really emotional sort of person but this is a movie that always gets to me. To quote the film,"I can't believe that the noblest impulse for man - his compassion for another - can be completely dead here.". To be honest a lot of the time I can't even bring myself to watch the news because it really does disturb me how some people can just knowingly bring harm to others with no regret for their actions. I'm not claiming to be some model of morality(I'm not) but reading or seeing those sorts of things really disturbs me. Fiction is one thing but.. doing those sorts of things to real people is unfathomable to me.
Anyway this is an amazing film. You have great acting, cinematography, dialogue. I can't really point out a weak point in this movie.