Rating: 
Summary: Did the critics even watch it?
Review: Don't listen to the critics. When I rented this movie I saw in big bold letters, NOMINATED FOR 7 ACADEMY AWARDS, INCLUDING BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTION...the list goes on and on. I said to myself... self, this is going to be great. I can't wait to watch it! After watching it, I ponder why it was nominated for best everything. Where the critics asleep when they reviewed this? The cast is solid, with lots of little parts here and there. Woody Harrelson and George Clooney deserved more than they received. They shouldn't have wasted there time with the parts they landed. Woody Harrelson is in the begining of the movie for about 10 minutes give or take, until he blows his leg off in a terrible granade accident. Then at the very very very end of the movie we get to see about 2 minutes of George Clooney as the new captian or general in charge, spouting of how things are gonna be done. The "father" if you will. These actors are just to talnted. The scenery is beautiful and Nick Nolte is great, but thats about it. This movie is very difficult to understand. After the first couple of hours, I was feeling very sleep deprived, and almost didn't care if I saw the end. But, being the trooper that I am, I hung in there and watched it all. Rent it before you buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't waste your money!
Review: This is why one doesn't listen to critics. They loved it because of its artistic features. The scenery was nice the rest plain boring. You got better combat action in the television show Combat! I would only recommend this movie to insomniacs with a high threshold for pain.
Rating:
Summary: WAR AND POETRY
Review: An all star cast and a great novel make "The Thin Red Line" the unique film it is. People have been comparing "Saving Private Ryan" to this film. WHY? Each film had it's own agenda! Ryan true was probably more realistic. While this film wanted to make a poetic statement.Everyone is saying the film wasn't REAL enough! ARE YOU BLIND! Can't you see that's not what they wanted to do with this film. There is a bad point though....the time element.I've noticed a lot of film are overdone! Maybe they feel if they make the movie long they have a epic masterpiece on their hands.What they don't realize is all they have IS A LONG MOVIE! And in many cases a BORING one! Around the two hour mark I was waiting for the film to end. I just couldn't take it anymore! I saw that Malick was getting over indulgent.The film was taking on more then it could handle. But still a film people should see.
Rating: 
Summary: Beautiful, Evocative, and Cinematic Poetry
Review: Say what you will, but Terence Malick's gorgeous opus was 1998's most stunning oscar contender. Although I enjoyed "Saving Private Ryan," and found "Shakespeare in Love" to be absolutely wonderful, neither film could match the profundity, depth, and utter beauty of "The Thin Red Line." In truth, "Saving Private Ryan," and "The Thin Red Line" should never be compared because their tones are so strikingly different. Yet Malick's representation of WWII is far more realistic, and less jingoistic than Spielberg's. Whereas Spielberg treats war as a necessary evil in "Saving Private Ryan" and looks at each one of his characters as a hero, Malick questions why people fight in the face of Eden and reveals his characters as flawed. There is no dramatic salute scene or shot of a waving American flag in "The Thin Red Line," for Malick's aim is far deeper than that of Spielberg's. Not only are the films performances well executed, and its themes amazingly explored, but "The Thin Red Line" is one of the most visually beautiful films created in recent history. The shots of waving grass exhibit the extreme beauty of Guadanacanal, and serve as the perfect contrast to the horrors of war the picture presents. "The Thin Red Line" is true cinematic poetry, and is destined to go down in history as one of the greatest anti-war films of all time.
Rating: 
Summary: Ambivalence. Not from Hollywood. . .
Review: As any film, the Thin Red Line is vulnerable to and deserving of legitimate criticism. But its perceived infidelities to the war movie genre are undeserved and misdirected. Ambivalence is not something traditionally well recieved by the American cinema, and it is largely from this trend that this film has had some difficultly finding an American audience. If you can manage some degree of thematic complexity and are at least somewhat aware that conflict breeds suffering for all parties involved, you may find some value in this version of the novel. While not perfect, The Thin Red Line is about as good as Hollywood gets. (If you insist on the war genre rubric, just compare final scenes of Saving Private Ryan to The Thin Red Line, and it is hard to knock Malick too much). Try watching it alone.
Rating:
Summary: WASTE OF TIME
Review: JK REED IS DEFINITELY WRONG ON THIS ONE. THIS MOVIE IS A WASTE OF TIME, AS WELL AS A WASTE OF TALENT. MOST OF THE PEOPLE I'VE TALKED TO WHO'VE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED WAR TELL ME THAT THIS MOVIE DOES NOT DO IT JUSTICE. CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, THIS MOVIE HAS NO ARTISTIC MERIT WHATSOEVER.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of time
Review: Without a doubt one of the worst "things" I have ever been witness to. I only regret that you can't give negative numbers (you can't even give 0), or just out and out cuss the movie. If your idea of a good time is spending 3 hours fighting off sleep while suffering through a boring, pretentious, meandering piece of so called art then by all means, go right ahead. Just consider yourself warned. The only reason this garnered such critical acclaim is because it was such a calculatedly "important" film that no critic could resist a chance to exhibit just how deep they really are. Too bad no one goes to the movies to be merely entertained anymore. If you really want to watch a war movie commenting on the human condition, give Apocalypse Now another go round. That was a movie that succeded on more the dual levels of text and subtext like this movie tries (and fails) so hard to do. All in all it is hard to be impressed by a movie that tries so hard to be so important. In the end it makes all involved just look bad.
Rating:
Summary: Think about it, ladies and gentlemen . . .
Review: A couple of weeks ago, I rented "Saving Private Ryan". Not a bad film at all - a little heavy on the patriotism, and rather predictable, but expertly made. You could do a lot worse than to see that.But you would be missing out on an extraordinary piece of cinema. Thin Red Line succeeds because it isn't just another war film, with the same old stereotypes and conventions. It's a philosophical hammer-blow set during wartime, that yanks you out of your Hollywood complacency and shows you something more; a fundamentally deep and yet non-patronising world view. Its incredible beauty and wonderful acting give you release from your day-to-day reels of celluloid, and show you a revelatory experience. That is, if you have patience and an open mind. If you can't be bothered to put a little effort into your film-watching, then please buy Huge Guns IV: More Explosions. But you will be missing out on the true power of film.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent evocation of an uneven literary work
Review: Jones has been described as a bad writer who was a genius. His efforts to portray war realistically while probing metaphysical matters through the lenses provided by character studies of men in an Army rifle company were quite uneven, but taken as a whole, brilliant. The movie captured the best of what Jones tried to accomplish, but meandered too much. A few other quibbles: Jones' frank exploration of homosexuality in a military context was dropped, probably because it showed how it really works out and not how Political Correctness requires that it be portrayed nowadays. The company commander's Jewishness was dropped. Jones pulled no punches about attitudes toward Jews in the Army (and society) of that time, and his Captain Stein was a more complex character whose plight was more pathetic and sympathetic--in the novel the men first dub him "Bugger Stein" and come to appreciate his good qualities only after he's relieved. As for the plus side of the ledger: The actors were superb. Even Travolta and Clooney managed to contribute much to the film's tone through their abbreviated appearances. The cinematography was wonderful. The depiction of combat was eerily reminescent of accounts provided by jungle warfare veterans with whom I've had the chance to serve. An excellent film with some serious flaws--much like Jones' book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant... An absolute Masterpiece!
Review: The critics who panned this master work are very unenlightened. Granted... the movie is only going to be appreciated by those few individuals who are truly introspective, spiritually aware or those who have faced the most severe kinds of adversity in their lives. Unfortunately these characteristics are all too uncommon especially amongst Americans. The film is an exploration at its' core of the most fundamental human emotions and motivations. Courage, love, honor, devotion, sacrifice, ambition, fear, adherence to principle, compromise, cynicism, acceptance, hope, malice, humanity, morality, and doubt just to name a few. And all of these with respect to oneself and others. All that notwithstanding it is a brilliantly crafted film. Fabulous imagery and cinematography plus perfectly orchestrated music for the drama that it accompanies. The beauty of the music and scenery is a perfect contrast to the horrors and harsh realities of war. And it was designed to illustrate just that contrast. How can such a miraculous and beautiful creation be brought to the level of a killer or an animal willing to do anything just to survive? That's the fundamental question. Though the film is not loaded with action, the action sequences are spectacular and capture the chaos, fear and uncertainty that many combat situations certainly must be. For me this is almost a once in a lifetime film. The last film I saw that I felt this strongly about was the Shawshank Redemption. In short, this is quality work. Not action packed, or excessively graphic but thoroughly thought provoking and dramatic. Mr Malick is to be highly commended. I'd definitely rate it as one of the 5 best films I have ever seen.
|
