Cross of Iron (1977)

***1/2
Color, 119 minutes.
Directed by Sam Peckinpah.

Starring James Coburn as the wily but disillusioned Sergeant Steiner, James Mason as the honest but ineffectual officer, and Maximillian Schell as the officer who values his own skin more than his honor. War is a senseless hell, and even more senseless than usual, since Steiner's unit is defending the Kuban peninsula in 1943 while the Russians are advancing towards the neck of the Crimean peninsula. A unique approach for an American film in that it takes the German point of view.