It’s a tough job, but somebody has to do it. We show “The Caine Mutiny” (Humphrey Bogart, Fred MacMurray) as a capstone event in our first leadership course. Students are asked to evaluate various parts of the movie in concert with what they’ve learned so far. Some of those areas are accountability, critical thinking, conflict management, leader/follower interaction, diversity, leadership styles, enduring leadership competencies, mentoring, and ethical decision-making. We show the movie the class session before the test, and discussion following the movie serves as a way to tie everything they’ve learned together and as a review for the test.

One of our students suggested a possible replacement movie, so I offered to evaluate it tonight. My boss will look at it this weekend. The suggested movie was “The Lost Battalion.” It’s a true story of World War I starring Rick Schroder. At first viewing, it has potential.