He gave it 3/4 stars but the whole review is a sarcastic commentary that gives mock praise to the violence in the film and says "at least they were responsible and didn't show sex" to paraphrase. He doesn't give any reason why he gave it a good rating. He was new to film criticism at the time but he would frequently criticise popular violent films throughout his career. Anyway the confusion here only comes because the rating doesn't seem to match the review.
shareI guess he had a problem with the violence but was honest enough to admit that the film was well made, well plotted, well acted and with good characters. So perhaps he thought there was plenty to admire, and it was a shame that such good work was put in to serve a story he found unlikeable.
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If I could stop a rapist from raping a child I would. That's the difference between me and god.
Didn't he like The Wild Bunch and Bonnie & Clyde too?
shareThose came later. Seems like hisain problem with violence in The Dirty Dozen was that it served no artistic or meaningful purpose, but was just for thrills.
His big rant in the review is against devising the plot just to have a scene that shows people being burned alive... And that no censors had a problem with it even though such a depiction was against certain local rules at the time.
I'm watching it on TCM now and haven't seen anything like that so I'm curious if the DVD is different. Or maybe it was only in that first theatrical release.