The review

A general wants a promotion and orders an attack on a position that cannot be taken. When the attack fails, the failure has to be someone's fault, and it will not be his. Three men are chosen, almost at random, and tried for cowardice. Their colonel, who led them, defends them in a proceeding he can see is a performance. The film is not long. It does not need to be. The machine is simple and the simplicity is the accusation.

I would show this to an older teenager before I would show them a war film that loves its own explosions. Ask who selected the three men and what the selection was protecting. The answer is a career. A house that can see a career hiding inside a court-martial has learned something the decade's larger epics often spend three hours avoiding. The last scene, a room of soldiers and a song, is the mercy the court would not give. Do not skip it to make the film harsher. The harshness has already done its work.