Let's be realistic.

The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Blistering performances.

1950's "The Men" may not have been a tour-de-force production like "A Streetcar Named Desire" and there was certainly no Oscar nomination here for actor, Marlon Brando's performance....But, at least - Brando's "method acting" skills showed the audience that he could also play a (somewhat) likable character (who was clearly physically challenged) rather than his usual trademark shtick of a loud-mouthed bully and louse who slapped the women around just for kicks.Anyway - If nothing else - I certainly do give this film its due credit for raising the despairing issue of war vets who had been crippled, maimed, and/or disfigured while serving their country (doing battle duty) during WW2.This sort of distressing subject matter was, I'm sure, not often brought to light before the public back then and I'll bet you this motion picture made a lot of people feel very uneasy and resentful.

Much has already been said about this being Marlon Brando's screen debut (and some debut it is). But this film is more than Brando. Its success depends largely on his interaction with his costars-- especially the lovely Teresa Wright.There is a moment when Brando's paraplegic character pulls up outside his and Wright's new home. He comes up the sidewalk in his wheelchair and she takes him inside. We learn that despite all his resistance, he has realized that they belong together and can share a place together and enjoy married life. It may have a sentimental feel to it, but these actors play it very realistically. They deftly combine volatility and vulnerability. And while the title may suggest the focus is on only one sex, it is a story for both.

More curiosity piece than good cinema, Fred Zinnemann's "The Men" stars Marlon Brando in his film debut. Brando plays Lieutenant Wilozek, a WW2 veteran who returns to the United States paralysed. Taking place largely in Army medical facilities, the film watches with grim fascination as wounded soldiers and paralysed men struggle to cope with their debilitations. Some men crawl slowly back to some semblance of physical and psychological health, others seem lost, trapped in broken shells of flesh.While Brando is riveting and some of the film's moments are appropriately sensitive, the film mostly reeks of producer Stanley Kramer. Kramer specialised in heavy handed "message movies" which pretend to say the right thing but do something else. In "The Men's" case we have a syrupy soap opera about the tolls of war, the suffering of paraplegics, the self-loathing and shame engendered by armed conflicts, that suddenly shifts from becoming a glorified public awareness video to a story about the healing power of both love and never-give-up military medics. By the film's end, it becomes "Brando's responsibility to heal". Progress can't be made unless he "stops being a bad boy".Fred Zinnemann, a sometimes excellent director, elevates some moments, hits us with a somewhat dark ending and goes in some territory which was deemed shocking back in the 1950s (Brando's sexual impotency), but much of the film is overly talkative. Blame Kramer.6.9/10 – Worth one viewing.

"The Men" comes from a time when movies didn't have long credits, from a time when a black and white frame was the only and the most beautiful thing existing in the world. It also comes from a time when what today sounds unbelievably clichéd, sounded perfect and accurate; exaggeration was a common thing.Some of the phrases in Carl Foreman's screenplay would probably make people laugh ridiculously nowadays (only some), but in this film they appear as reflexive and honest lines spoken by normal human beings. Then, "The Men" comes from a time when a young actor by the name of Brando, Marlon Brando; was bursting into the cinematic industry.Ironically, Brando is the most positive and the most negative element in "The Men"; I'll explain why soon enough. He plays Ken, a lieutenant shot in war who now lies in a hospital bed, paraplegic. In a powerful scene, Dr. Brock (Everett Sloane) gives a speech about the condition, and afterwards desperate mothers and wives bombard him with questions about how he thinks their sons and husbands are: if they'll be able to make it.In this scene, one lady, Elle (Teresa Wright), approaches the doctor, asking about a patient who is her fiancée but apparently doesn't want to see her; this is Ken. The reason is that he doesn't want her to see the man he's become, because she might not be able to cope with it. Or maybe he's still the same man and, with the help of his new friends Norm (Jack Webb), Leo (Richard Erdman) and Angel (Arthur Jurado), he is going to figure it out.Thus, a lot of training to get well arrives; completely depicted in a scene with musical background, kind of like what "Rocky" would do more than a decade after, but with his legs. In that scene, the music works, but through the rest of the picture I found it a total mess, accentuating moments that didn't need accentuation and making the voices of the actors difficult to listen to. However, maybe this was because of the fact that the score (or sound) of the film was 'muffled', as they told us in the theater. This wouldn't make sense though, because muffled is quiet, not loud…Whatever.Another great moment is when Elle eventually visits Ken, and he shows his legs to her: "This is what you wanna see?", he shouts; obliging her to look. In this particular moment, Marlon Brando's characterization is so strong that it seems to be coming from another film. And this is the double-sided aspect of Brando's fantastic acting skills in this movie: you can perfectly realize he was superior to all of his peers, but out of place because they couldn't pair him.For example, Wright's overly calm and exaggerated tone (perhaps common with some actresses at the time), confronting Brando's expressive loud voice in some scenes, makes the actor look like a madman; when he is actually capturing the essence of these scenes. Same to be said about Brando's sense of reality when talking to Webb and Erdman, who act as if they were living a joke.Being a paraplegic is no joke; the movie and Fred Zinnemann's care for the characters (just like in "From here to eternity") try to make this clear, as he takes them to deal with society in several situations: "Do you see how they're staring us?", Ken tells Elle when they go out for dinner. Of course some people may want to face the condition by laughing about it; but that's another story.And "The Men" is also a love story, and a good one with an ending so predictable and classic that, after watching Mikio Naruse's "When a woman ascends the stairs", comes as a breath of fresh air.