Scapegoating is such a dirty business.

Rating: 6/10 (22 October 2005)

This is a great movie. The story is compelling, the acting powerful, the theme sublime. This movie is about how the individual person can be reduced to the level of a mere statistic, a mere dot on somebody's organizational plan, a mere object to be sacrificed and never be missed by those in charge, who have their own personal agendas and will do ANYTHING to avoid taking responsibility when things go wrong. A military operation fails, and the general in charge is angry and he will not be the one stuck with the blame. As far as this general is concerned, the soldiers are a bunch of lazy, cowardly slackers who don't want to fight - even though the soldiers are dying by the thousands. But that is of no concern to the general who wants to blame someone for the failed operation because if the general takes responsibility he will be revealed for what he is: an egocentric, incompetent martinet who is interested in only one thing - furthering his career at the expense of the soldiers under his command. To pursue that selfish goal, this general will throw away the lives of the soldiers entrusted to him. This movie stars Kirk Douglas. But the real star of this movie is Adolph Menjou who plays the French general. On July 1, 1916, the British lost over 57,000 men killed or wounded while the Germans lost 8,000, with no appreciable gains, tactically or strategically. What an extravagant squandering of human life. But the generals in charge, who did the squandering, lived to fight another day.