A great movie, and perfect for a TV melodrama

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2004)

I can't get over the quality of the acting in this movie...so perfect. Kubrick must have beat the actors into their roles. The only issue I have with this otherwise perfect war-as-depressing-bureaucratic-hell play is the all-too quick transition from the war zone to the trial scene. If you blink too long, you'll wonder where the war went and how you wandered into one of the myriad law-as-drama TV shows. Fortunately, the movie extends beyond its jurisprudence tableau into meatier fare. Kirk Douglas looks and breathes his war weary part.
The final scene at the bar is another attempt by Kubrick to remind the audience what's really being lost in war (this major diversion theme is also repeated at 2001's end). Here, as in 2001, it's a bit jarring and out of character with the rest of the movie. I respect the director's choice but I'd have found a different way to have made the point.