Full Movie Reviews
Rating of
3.5/4
A powerful feature
memento_mori - wrote on 07/09/2013
Kirk Douglas is amazing in this film. People have argued that his character is underdeveloped, but I find him to be perfect that way. You don't know much about him, but you get the sense that he's a cold man of war, who, when everyone else ducks during an explosion in a trench, will continue walking tall. That is the majority of his character until he finds out the men who stayed in the trenches are to be shot and he really let his principal, emotional side show.
The acting and the overall filling of the characters was also amazing. There are so many likable and so many unlikable characters, who simply use other soldiers and each other for their own benefit, when the main purpose of the war is for justice.
While this was a very powerful movie, I felt it needed more in certain scenes. …
Rating of
3.5/4
Paths of Glory review
Daniel Corleone - wrote on 04/09/2013
"There are few things more fundamentally encouraging and stimulating than seeing someone else die." 701's Régiment Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas) is challenged at court by the insensitive strict General Mireau (George Macready). Private Ferol (Timothy Carey), Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel) and Corporal Paris ((Ralph Meeker) were chosen to be court martial-ed. Beautifully scored with solid acting from all the cast. Definitely one of the best screenplays portryed on screen from the director with quotes: General Mireau: "Were not talking about the past. Were talking about the present." Col. Dax - "I can't believe that the noblest impulse for man - his compassion for another - can be completely dead here. Therefore, I humbly beg you... show mercy to these men." Father - "Death comes to us …
Rating of
2.5/4
Not a great war movie
Melon Head - wrote on 11/08/2012
For a movie that is rated so highly I feel disappointed.
Neither was it a great war movie, nor was it a great movie about justice/injustice (instead see 12 Angry Men).
Without the acting of Kirk Douglas the movie would have been a flop, the performance of the rest of the cast was below average.
Artillery constantly landing on friendlys without casualty (at least initially). The attack was a surprise-attack at sunrise so I can only imagine the artillery landing on the soldiers was from the allied artillery regiment and not the Germans. WTF. I know Artillery is known to drop short but seriously.
They should have had a scene of the men writing their swarn testimonies against the General. Obviously they were pissed off, they should have shown that.
Would have been nice to see the …
Rating of
2.5/4
Not a great war movie
Melon Head - wrote on 11/08/2012
For a movie that is rated so highly I feel disappointed.
Neither was it a great war movie, nor was it a great movie about justice/injustice (instead see 12 Angry Men).
Without the acting of Kirk Douglas the movie would have been a flop, the performance of the rest of the cast was below average.
Artillery constantly landing on friendlys without casualty (at least initially). The attack was a surprise-attack at sunrise so I can only imagine the artillery landing on the soldiers was from the allied artillery regiment and not the Germans. WTF. I know Artillery is known to drop short but seriously.
They should have had a scene of the men writing their swarn testimonies against the General. Obviously they were pissed off, they should have shown that.
Would have been nice to see the …
Rating of
3.5/4
"Paths Of Glory" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 12/31/2011
The irony of the title of Stanley Kubrick's powerful anti-war film cannot be missed. Kirk Douglas plays a colonel in the French army of WWI who is ordered to make a futile attack by an arrogant and effete general for his own personal and ambition fuelled reasons. When the offensive inevitably fails, he orders the execution of three men picked at random for cowardice. This film contains none of the usual flag waving and macho heroics, Kubrick preferring to make a blistering attack on the hypocrisy of the politics of war and those who wage it from behind their lines, luxuriating in chateaus and attending costume balls while the men they so casually send to their deaths suffer under impossible conditions. It is much an attack on the class system as anything, as the aristocratic officers can …
