Crimson not Chicken

The film it reminds me of most certainly isn't Chicken Run. It starts off superbly, never seen Colin Farrell better, and pulls you into his experiences. The pace slackens when they get to camp and doesn't pick-up until the focus of the trial. Classic war films of the 50's and 60's were made by people who'd actually been in WW2 so when they were contived, they knew how far they were pushing the envelope. Now when WW2 is the background for a film, it might as well be the crusades and you feel it's based on other films rather than reality. I was feeling manipulated by the contrived set-up when Terrence Howard said he was willing to die to help his comrades despite their racism. He acted perfectly and the script had subtly set it up with his background so I accepted it as a man wishing to be honourable rather than being unlikely or worse, someone being conned into defending people who abuse him.

But Colin Farrell is the hero so he takes the glory and in a good if less likely twist, claims to be the murderer. Is he going to be killed then? No. The honour goes to the top-billed star. Bruce Willis is very good and often looks ugly in harsh lighting. At the end he has a great entrance where he reminds me of Humphrey Bogart more than Steve McQueen. When officers start saluting with tears in their eyes it reminded me of Crimson Tide. The posts here I found surprising but I looked over at Crimson Tide and found arguments about politics and nuclear warfare ( not the end of the world, Chernobyl only killed 50 people! ) Both films ( spoiler if you haven't seen CT) have young officers going up against their superiors who despite their apparently wrong, awful behaviour turn out to be equally good in the end, leaving the younger man admiring them despite what's happened.

The appeal for this format isn't just a good final twist. In USA the Democrats and the Republicans are in about equal numbers, in Britain, the Tories and Labour are also quite close. You do well by appealing to both reactionary and revolutionary audiences and you stand a better chance of getting a big star if his character isn't a straightforward authoritarian villain. So you have the film from the young mans pov and then at the end you see it from the other side.

I believe in life that you need an interaction between the two sides and neither side should gain total power. But I dont know if that happens here
because the message is that if the boss was so good then the fight wasn't needed. Despite the fact you've seen the result was better for fighting. So trust your elders, chain of command, if you disagree it's because you don't understand. Colin Farrell is tricked into becoming the next Bruce Willis and when in time he himself sees a younger pretender, he'll feel he has nothing to learn from him because the journey he's taken has shown him both sides.
So the process will have to happen again.