The Thin Red Line

Rating:
Summary: A perfect vehicle for Malick's obsessions
Review: As true artists do, Terrence Malick holds on tight to his obsessions.Despite the many years gone by after his last oeuvre the same motifs that concerned him in his previous efforts are also present in the Thin Red Line: understanding or lack of it, communication, violence, the way different persons deal with a certain dramatic situation. His humanist approach seems to me to be truly sincere, and I think that's what I valued most of all in this movie.His non-judgamental look on people's actions stayed with me for a long time after watching the film. Of course James Jones'novel is in itself a fertile ground for Malick's interests and is a masterpiece on a whole different level.Perhaps less idealistic, more unforgiving. I suggest to anybody who appreciated this movie to read Jones'book as an interesting excercise on comparing each auteur's'visions.For example, Malick's Corporal Witt is a lovable, Christlike figure, a tragic, concerned humanist, whose story is the main thread of the movie.On the other hand, the book doesn't focus on Witt's deeds as it does on Fife's (who barely appears in the movie).Jones'Corporal Witt turns to be a more complex caracther: he is obsessed with saving others, but he's also a tough southern kid, a racist, and ultimately, a killing machine.Compare him to the 'movie' Witt, whose most otreageous display of agressiveness are his intense stares to Sgt. Welsh and his words: "I'm twice the man you are".I'm not saying that Malick's Witt is a better developed caracther than Jones'Witt.I am not even saying that they are different (though I find hard to believe that Witt maintained his racism on his translation to film, on accounts of his "melanesian family").All I'm saying is that it's interesting to appreciate which aspects of the same caracthers each author chose to focus in, because this says a lot about each of them, their beliefs and their different purposes.But what they ultimately share is their concern for all things human in the context of war. The movie has moments of inmense aesthetic beauty, the mixture of spell-binding music and gorgeous images, the constant use of metaphores, the outstanding performances by all the cast and an intense and thought-provoking story, all contribute to make it the best film I've seen in a very long time.

Rating:
Summary: There's One Good Thing About this Movie
Review: What's good about THE THIN RED LINE, not equalled in any other war movie I've ever seen, is the brooding sense of menace. Our troops are advancing on Guadalcanal. They can't see the enemy. Gunfire comes at them from behind bushes and trees. You're heading into death and you can't see your executioner. The point of view of the foot soldier is utterly stark and terrifying. The fear and menace of war has never better been captured. For this achievement, the film deserves its first two stars. But after that, nothing. The screenplay is like a sophomoric bullsession about life, death, tragedy, love, despair, the Universe. No one has anything at all new or interesting to say; it's a retread of every weary drunk-fest ... session you've ever experienced. The neighborhood bar has more insights. The film meanders, it doesn't know where to go. Nick Nolte tries his screaming best to be a tough leader, but you keep thinking "what a good acting job he's doing," and this isn't what you should be thinking; a really good acting job is not noticed because you're so "into" the film that you forget that they are actors. Maybe it's not entirely Nolte's fault--maybe the director simply yelled at him to scream louder. I get the impression that Terrence Malick, the director, is just as bad with actors as he is with scripts. He has only one good thing going for him--a great sense of conveying mood. This is good enough for fifteen minutes, but it's not enough to carry a whole movie. Bottom line: an ususual war film because of the menacing mood that is conveyed.

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Summary: A Fine Film About The Sacred
Review: A lot of good things have already been said here about this movie , so I will just make a couple of quick observations:

--If you will listen closely, much of the voice-over narration is prayer, pure and simple. Consciously or not, the soldiers are trying to make contact with God in order to survive, or merely to make sense of the horror.

--The basic point of view of the movie is that of an outsider who is unable to fit in to the Machine of combat. The heroes keep hearing a different drummer that drowns out the satanic commander that bawls in their ear "kill or be killed"; they can't shut out a transcendental reality that supersedes the bloody one they are temporarily caught in. The musical score (especially the excerpts from Faure's "Requiem") help us share that perspective.

"Saving Private Ryan" (ultimately a shallow, brain-dead story) got all the attention when these two films were released during the same year. It took me a second viewing of "The Thin Red Line" to adjust myself to its slower, more profound rhythms. Get off the hyper Spielberg bandwagon and check this out. If you prepare yourself for something intense, rather than something flashy, you won't be disappointed.

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Summary: Argument of the 'intellects'
Review: There seems to be a lot of argument regarding this film on the basis of how intelligent you are. The general trend is: if you're intelligent and arty, you'll like this film, if you're not then your opinion doesn't count. Well I here and now state that this argument is insulting. When we watch films, most of us watch it in isolation; we haven't read the book, we haven't studied the history. If we are to view TRL for what it is, a piece of cinema, we should not be saying: 'it's a good film because we've read the book and know what it's about.' The point is, as a film viewed in isolation, does it work? And the answer is, sadly, no.

The cinematography is truly stunning, and it is really for that that this film received two of its stars. It is beautiful to watch, the destructiveness of man placed beside the tranquil yet cruelly indifferent world of Nature: in the heat of a battle scene, a fledgling crawls from its nest; a dying soldier gazes up at a fragile leaf framed by the sun; fruit bats hang unmoved in the trees. Where the film is let down, however, is in its story line and the lack of insight into its characters. Like one of the ensemble cast films of the sixties ('The Battle of Britain', 'The Longest Day'), we are besieged by a plethora of characters whose natures we can only really judge by their actions, characters who disappear just when they are becoming interesting (Nick Nolte, John Cusack). Indeed, the only characters we follow the full length of the film are those played by Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn and Ben Chaplin, and these aren't the easiest men to engage with. Caviezel is a frequently AWOL private, who seems for all intents and purposes to be a pacifist seeking some form of meaning from life, yet who becomes, towards the end, just another faceless soldier vying for heroism. Sean Penn is the Sergeant whose only goal is to survive the carnage, and that's the most depth we get. Ben Chaplin's character is the only one that I can empathise with, and where the third star comes from. The grainy-textured flashback scenes as he thinks of his wife back home whilst crawling into battle give the proceedings a particularly poignant air that make his fate of more concern to you than the others. The tension created by this almost fairy-tale love story and the effect of war on the individual is then, however, completely blown. It is a shame, as your attention to this character quickly falls afterwards because our one point of empathy has gone and we're not offered another.

The story line of the film is uninspired, to say the least. It begins with Charlie Company landing on Guadacanal and having to secure a hill from the Japanese. The first two or so hours are this objective, a physical progression of the story. But then, after they have reached the top of the hill, the film keeps going through a number of ill-fitting action sequences which don't really have a direction in mind. And then it ends. I apologise for my ignorance, but I disliked the fact that it gives no historical context; the Americans win a few firefights, but in the overall battle, are they winning or losing? Or is that the point, that a soldier's only focus is on his few engagements, a tiny cog in an immense war machine? At least in films like 'Platoon', the characters have goals; we merely drift in the last hour of this one. And what is the 'thin red line'? I take it that the title refers to the Japanese defenders, but as it is never alluded to, who knows? I guess I'd have to read the book, eh?

The point of the film is not clear at all. Most of the characters we follow have poetic, philosophical inner monologues which serve as a form of narration; oddly, they are all routed in the same bleakly-allegorical mind. And yet for a film that is essentially philosophy through symbolism and visuals, it does not seem to be making any committal or groundbreaking statements...

Rating:
Summary: FEAR
Review: i've read a number of reviews here, so i see no reason to rhapsodize about a classic. but i will point out a couple of things: (1) the soldiers in this movie are believable because they show us their FEAR. if you think that's a banal statement take a closer look at (yup) Saving Private Ryan. where's the fear? my point exactly; there's not a whole lot of it (besides the opening 20 minutes where the troops are under DIRECT attack). not enough for my taste. contrast this with malick's machismo-less The Thin Red LIne. fear is a common palpable theme running the ENTIRE movie. this makes for some uncomfortable viewing, sports fans, but that's war. (2) malick is the man to watch. do yourself a big favor and buy "Days of Heaven" on DVD. and rent "Badlands." "Days of Heaven" is a profound movie-watching experience that (like all classic movies) IMPROVES WITH EACH VIEWING. i'm keeping this review short because i want the people who gave The Thin Red Line 1 or 2 stars to keep reading all the way to the end. you know how it is when you've got a short attention span ...

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Summary: Terrifying Look At The Tortuous Psychodrama Of Combat!
Review: Anyone familiar with James Jones' gripping novel concerning the so-called "thin red line" between one's war experience and madness must appreciate the stunning accuracy with which the latest film version of this frightening psychodrama plays itself into the experiences of a group of soldiers about to go into battle at Guadalcanal. History buffs familiar with the literature (both fiction and non-fiction) emanating from the Pacific campaign of World war two understand that unlike their European comrades, the dogfaces confronting combat in the South Pacific fought short, ferocious, and incredibly intense battles which were then punctuated by long and frustratingly lonely periods during which too much time left to ponder the reality of what they had been experiencing was often a maddening yet irresistible glimpse into the darkness of their own souls.

Indeed, a number of noted authors like William Manchester, Ronald Spector, and James Jones all refer to this uniquely Japanese-theater related psychological syndrome in one form or another in their writings. From the opening frames of this movie, the actors confront the nature of their own existence as well as the insane set of circumstances they face as soldiers trapped into a psychotic situation from which the only sure escape is violent and painful death. From frame to frame we catch glimpses of this insanity, from a soldier killing himself accidentally with his own weapon to others sacrificing themselves for the sake of their buddies. Although one is comically absurd and the other courageous, both are intensely unlike the circumstances anyone would experience anywhere else but in combat.

All that said, the film is a very sophisticated exploration of man's humanity and inhumanity under circumstances so bizarre and unusual that one must suspend one's ordinary consciousness in order to survive. The cinematography is marvelous, and even in the most gruesome and violent scenes, one gets the feeling all of this is choreographed by someone understanding the power of the camera to catch glimpses of man's essential struggle with himself in those moments he is most desperately trying to stay alive under the most murderous of circumstances. It will probably never be a film popular with or appreciated by the masses, for most people simply don't take the time and energy to peer below the surface of what is happening on the screen to understand what the director and actors are saying so passionately and beautifully both verbally and non-verbally about the nature of man, the world we live in, and the incredible things men do to each other in the terrible prism of combat.

Rating:
Summary: philosophical movie with war laying in background
Review: I have seen plenty of war movies, including great works like "apocalipse now" or "saving private ryan". But this one graps me from the first minute to the last one. It's definitely not a movie for every one, especially not for the audience who just want to spend three hours to get entertained and no more. If you are serious movie-lover, rent it first and I am pretty sure that you want to buy this masterpiece after the unique experience of watching and thinking about it. After writing this review I am going to place an order here on Amazon.com.

Rating:
Summary: Good movie-if it had been 30 minutes long
Review: About an hour of fluff and fill and 30 minutes of the WW2 action that was advertised.

Rating:
Summary: All about Reflection
Review: "That movie was boring", I heard the lady say, "it was too much like a documentary."

The lady was half way right, it does play like a documentary. But that's what sets it apart from other war movies. Quite opposite from it's counterpart (Saving Pt. Ryan, which was also made that year) this movie investigates the internal struggle, the soul- searching of the men who fought for our country. People complain about the lack of action in this film. My complaint is that many war movies get so involved in action that the charachters are forgotten. This movie is different ,though. It shows us the waiting time, while soliders questioned their actions, reflected upon themselves, or thought about home. This movie doesn't go anywhere, but then again life doesn't either sometimes. Sean Penn and Nick Nolte are at their best, as you've never seen them before. Many performances barely register( George Clooney, John Travolta). Still others shall move you quite profoundly, more so each time you watch this movie.( Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin, John Cusack) Unlike many movies, this will stay in your mind forever, this one shows what war is about.

Rating:
Summary: Gen-X may like this movie. I recommend the 1964 original..
Review: I give Terence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" two stars for cinematography and production quality, but that's about it! I thought this movie was heavily mis-cast. One wonders what John Travolta, Woody Harrelson and George Clooney are doing in this movie. Nick Nolte fits in but overacts as the deranged Colonal. Jim Caviezel's performance is good, but his role (as of others in this movie) too modern and pacifist for the 1942 WWII situation where the Axis powers' threat to the freedom and peace of the entire world was real and well perceived. (It's barely a year after Pearl Harbour when the Army moved in to relieve the Marines at Guadalcanal). They seem to miss the points in James Jones' book.

Justice is better done to the book in the 1964 original movie (available on video), directed by Andrew Marton who, incidently, was involved as secondary director to such top-notch war films as "The Longest Day" and "Catch-22". All the characters in the 1964 original are believable, especially Keir Dullea's unforgettable performance at Pvt. Doll. I also recommend the 1943 film "Guadalcanal Diary" to real WWII buffs.