Riveting, chilling in its intensity, and shockingly relevant

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2011)

I generally don't like war movies, even anti-war movies. To me, they're like Westerns, most of which fall back on the same tired tropes we've seen a billion times.
Then, while browsing Kubrick's impressive back catalog, I stumbled on "Paths of Glory," and was transfixed for an hour and a half.
Simply put, this film has it ALL and touches on almost as wide a scope: right and wrong, moral and spiritual hypocrisy, the futility of conflict...there's not a root cause of human suffering this film doesn't attack, and splendidly. But, it's never heavy handed, never verbose or pedantic.
For those who don't know the story, it's very simple to sum up. A glory-mongering general (MacReady) accepts an offer by a superior (Adolphe Menjoe) to seize a literally impossible-to-take target during the WWI France/Germany conflicts, then tries to blame the mission's failure on three almost randomly picked scapegoats in the trenches. The sentence? Death by firing squad for cowardice. Douglas is the commanding colonel who sees through MacReady and Menjoe's motives and fights like hell to save the lives of his troops. Douglas is as fine as he's been, but MacReady and Menjoe steal a lot of the thunder, as two of the most inhuman monsters you'll see on screen. The scene after the execution where they discuss how well the execution of the three martyrs was carried out, as they dine on a gourmet lunch at Menjoe's exquisite château, is nauseating but all too true-to-life. Oh, did I forget to mention one of the victims had a skull fracture and was barely awake when shot? MacReady's character sadistically directs the man to be revived seconds before being shot. "The general wants him conscious," his flunky explains.
Many mention the battle scenes in this film, and rightly so. Fot the time period, and the budget, their immediacy and coldness will take your breath away, and that's all Kubrick. There are actually several stunning camera moves here, not the least of which is a long tracking shot of Douglas walking through the trenches, the dismay and disgust on his face palpable, as the bodies writhe on either side of his like a human sea.
War is about money (as is just about everything, sadly) and its accorded power, and that's one thing that hasn't and probably won't change, long before this film was released in 1957. Kubrick puts this all in our face without any tired clichés, preaching, or hubris. Just phenomenal and utterly perfect.