I am persuaded that Martin Sheen gave us the finest performance of his career in an overlooked film called The Execution of Private Slovik, a film that tells the story of an American soldier executed for desertion in World War II. You would think that a film that announces the fate of its main character with its title couldn't possibly be very engaging, but the fact of the matter is that there are few things more interesting than watching talented actors portray people doomed to die.

It's one thing when sociopaths such as Perry Smith and Dick Hickock face execution in In Cold Blood, and it's another thing when an innocent man is wrongly convicted and sentenced to die (as in the case of John Coffey in The Green Mile). But it's a very different matter when a man is put to death simply for failing to do his job; and when a soldier exhibits cowardice in the face of enemy fire and is tried for his life, then he faces the penalty of death for having failed to do his job.

The Execution of Private Slovik, released in 1974, draws in many ways upon Stanley Kubrick's fourth feature film, Paths of Glory. But Kubrick does not focus on the three French soldiers condemned to die for what a self-serving general calls their cowardice; rather, he focuses on the character of Colonel Dax (Kirk Douglas), a brilliant French litigator who has joined the fight against the Germans in World War I out of what we can only presume is a sense of patriotism (though Dax himself points out that, as Samuel Johnson said, patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel).

As is so often the case in Kubrick's films, the most important work in the film is handled not by the actors, but by various ironies (dramatic, situational, verbal, etc.)--or perhaps by non-ironies that merely look like ironies. After the ambitious General Paul Mireau (George Macready) accepts the assignment of taking a fortified German location (the 'Anthill') with a division that he knows to be insufficient for the task, he decides to visit his troops and to attempt to lift their spirits by asking various privates about whether they are married. How it does a man on the front any good to think about the wife and children he has left behind is a mystery to everyone but the general. But his aide (who only seems like a yes man) can't help pointing out the flaws in the general's approach in an underhanded way. "These visits have an incalculable effect on the men," says the aide, though he conspicuously neglects to say whether the effect is good or bad. And then he adds, "In fact, I think the morale of the unit derives from it." Since the 'it' is the unspecified effect mentioned earlier, the general should at least suspect that his assistant is making fun of him, but his belief in the rectitude of the military hierarchy deludes him into imagining that all of his subordinates are loyal to him.

When the assault on the Anthill goes nowhere and Mireau's men begin to retreat, he interprets their behavior as an act of disobedience rather than the sound judgment of seasoned warriors. He assumes that the way to urge them forward is to have the artillery unit fire on his own troops, forcing them towards the Germans. He simply doesn't understand why the commander of the artillery unit refuses to kill his own brothers in arms.

His mystification has only just begun, however. When he decides that the best way to teach the men to follow his orders is to execute three 'cowards' as examples, he cannot believe that his trusted field commander Colonel Dax volunteers to defend the three men in their court martial.

Any irony easy enough for Sting to encapsulate in a clumsy couplet is bound to be a little too easy, however, and Kubrick's "corpulent general, safe behind lines, [with] history's lessons drowned in red wine" is about as standard an ironic figure as we are likely to encounter in film or any medium (as I suppose such figures can all be traced back to the original Miles Gloriosus of Roman theater). But the distinction between the pampered, self-indulgent general and the grimy, hard-working soldiers he wants to see shot is only the most superficial distinction that Kubrick examines in this brutally paced and wickedly heart-wrenching tale.

Another important distinction crops up in a rather philosohical discussion of the difference between death and dying (a conversation between two soldiers handled with a breathlessly hasty clumsiness on the part of the actors that no director other than Kubrick would have accepted). We also have the difference between due process and martial law, between bravery and bravado, between dying like a man and dying like a human.

The most withering irony in the film is the way that what seems ironic isn't ironic at all and concerns the various methods by which the three cowards are selected. Isn't it ironic that Corporal Paris (played with marvelous understatement by Ralph Meeker) is chosen to die by the very officer whom he knows to be a murderer? Nope, that's not ironic at all. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a man to eliminate another man who knows his dirty secret. But isn't it ironic that Private Arnaud (Joe Turkel) is selected to die by lot? Nope, actually that's standard practice in the French army for the selection of soldiers from an entire unit charged with cowardice. Well, but isn't it ironic that Private Ferol (Timothy Carey) is hand-picked to die by his lieutenant because he's socially undesirable? As any anthropologist will tell you, most societies have mechanisms (prisons, witch hunts, etc.) by which to eliminate the socially undesirable. There's nothing the least bit ironic about the three very different ways by which the 'cowards' are chosen, but each of them seems convinced that the reason for his selection is absolutely and unconscionably ironic. As they present their cases to Dax, they try to top one another with their sense of ironic outrage.

It's brilliant, of course. If I were condemned to die, no matter what the reason for the condemnation, it would certainly seem to me to be just about the most ironic pronouncement in history.

Douglas does a marvelous job of convincing us that Dax is precisely as brilliant and resourceful as Grishamesque lawyers are supposed to be, and we're convinced that he's going to figure out how to save his men from the firing squad. We keep waiting and waiting for the deus ex machina to materialize and for the men, who have all demonstrated courage under fire in the past, to be pardoned. Justice must be possible in the French military. After all, even Dreyfus himself was ultimately exonerated.

After one of the 'cowards' is knocked unconscious the night before the execution, a messenger from the general asks the other two men condemned to die to pinch their companion's cheeks before the execution because "the general wants him to be conscious." It's just not possible that a man strapped to a stretcher and propped against a pole will be pinched back into consciousness simply for the sake of experiencing his own execution, is it? That would really be too ironic, wouldn't it?

Actually, it wouldn't be ironic at all. You don't execute a man while he's sleeping. If you did, we would certainly call that ironic. "What's the point of rewarding a man condemned to death with the kind of death we all wish for?" we would ask. Then again, we might be inclined to call the participation of Father Dupree (Emile Dupree) in the execution ironic. "How can a man of the cloth actually be part and parcel of ritualized human slaughter?" we might ask. And then we might just recall that throughout history, men of the cloth have always been associated with ritualized human slaughter. It's probably the most important part of their job description.

Although the irony implicit in General Mireau's character (as a man who claims to be a 'fighting general' even though he spends most of his time either behind a desk in his chateau or shrinking childishly from explosions in the trenches) seems genuine, it is itself an unironic irony because irony is supposed to run contrary to our expectations. But since the cowardly general is a stock figure, even that irony doesn't measure up to much. As for the rest of our expectations that are defeated in the film, they're all the product of our willingness to be manipulated by Kubrick's direction and Douglas' acting.

If things work out precisely the way they aren't supposed to, that's because we expected the wrong things. When we step back from the movie, we see that everything went according to the rules as we all know and accept them. And there's nothing ironic about that. Strangely, though, the moment we reach that conclusion, we become General Mireau, certain of the rectitude of the existing hierarchy.

Recommended: Yes