Rating: 
Summary: Second only to Saving Private Ryan.
Review: A wonderful WWII masterpiece that follows the first infantry from North Africia to Omaha Beach and all across Europe. One of my favorite war movies. Mark Hamil does an exelent job as Griff the sharp shooter. And has a real tear jerker ending when the Big Red One goes to liberate a concentration camp.
Rating:
Summary: nearly forgotten and underappreciated
Review: After finally seeing this wonderful movie,I am stunned anyone would not consider it one of the great films.The pacing is so casual and relaxed in places it reminds me of Fellini.Some reviews correctly mention that the battle scenes are brief and somewhat underproduced,but they are secondary to the subtle poetic images Sam Fuller is putting on the screen.If you have seen other Fuller films as I have,it is unbelievable he was able to reach this pinnacle of creativity.Lee Marvin is too old for his part but no other actor could have played it as well.There are many delights to see and hear.To me it is the best war movie ever made. Kubrick,Coppola and Speilberg all made terrific films about war,but Fuller faced enemy guns in battle. His real experiences translate an unmistakeable authenticity into every frame.
Rating: 
Summary: A very good movie for it's time
Review: Although there are similarities between this movie and "Saving Private Ryan", the graphics in the latter movie are much more intense. If you thought "Ryan" was too graphic, this is the perfect movie for you. The audio quality of this movie was disappointing. Don't make big plans to crank up the surround sound and listen to bullets fly past your head. Lee Marvin was great. Nerd star Robert Caradine, a war novelist, narrated the action. He was actually very good too.
Rating: 
Summary: Slightly less than mediocre in most respects.
Review: As war movies go, this one lacks any element of a good movie. I bought the DVD on the strength of its many recommendations in Amazon.com and resold it after the first viewing. The problems are too numerous to detail in a short review, but here are a few: First, no one platoon could be present (indeed, the first to arrive) at all of the major events the "Big Red One" experienced -- this is flatly unrealistic. Second, there is no dramatic tension. In fact, there is no drama in the classical sense at all. The platoon sort of wanders around Africa and Europe fighting at times. Where is the human involvement? Why do we care about these specific soldiers? A better movie on this score is Platoon. The action is decent but the directing does not really capture the moment in the same way as, for example, Saving Private Ryan. The acting was good on average, but this did not save the directionless meanderings of the non-plot. In fact, I cannot even recommend seeing this once in light of the shortness of life and the many other good war films that are available, unless you just gotta see Mark Hamill play something other than a jedi knight (and play it well!).
Rating:
Summary: Doesnt quite make it
Review: First off, the best on screen depictions about WW II are Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers. Its an undisputed fact, IMHO. Any serious filmmaker attempting to make a WWII Production knows this, or should, and begin work on his production with that in mind. Anyway, in all fairness The Big Red One came 20 years before Ryan. To the Movie: the film its so... CLICHÉD! What really amazes me is that Sam Fuller is an actual veteran. But nonetheless the movie has every Hollywood cliché and is so unreal. Compare the landings of Normandy in "Ryan" with this. The soldiers are more preoccupied with the number of a bet they made back in the ship than to escape german bullets. David Carradine didn't stop smoking a big cigar through the whole thing.
The dialogue. In Ryan and BOB there's evidence of research done, but every word from the mouths of Lee Marvin and Co. sound like... a John Wayne movie, or a western. In the part where they fight for the concentration camp: first, no camp was taken by force, they were all left abandoned, since the germans knew they were committing crimes and the camps were supposed to be a secret. Plus, the troops guarding the camps were just that, guards, they were no regular troops, they were not supposed to fight. They weren't even Wehrmacht, they were a special SS unit, but Fuller's movie shows Wehrmacht troops guarding Death Camps?. The camp personnel knew always in advance when the allies were coming, so they'd left, what was the point of fighting for a camp? Plus, when this happened, Hitler was already dead, and Czechoslovakia was supposed to go to the Russians. So the germans at this stage of the war were surrendering en masse to American troops, for fear of being taken prisoner by the Russians, so why fight the American saviors? They were glad the G.I's were there. So this part of the movie is pure Bogus, from beginning to end. Compare with Episode 8 of BOB, where Easy company comes across a Death Camp. The Wooden Christ part... It's very dark, very surrealistic, since Christ is Blind, and danger is hiding behind him, and all the dead... the best part of the movie. I still don't get the insane asylum part. The thing is that... after the Vietnam war classics (Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Full metal Jacket) war movies are not made the way they were done before, all Western-john Wayne-we are good and win you bad and loser-kind of movie. They tend to show the experience of war as the terrible thing it is, instead of a gloryfing -army recruiting film. And with the exception of Ryan and BOB, no WWII movie ever did this, first, because the US won the war against the evil nazis and no moral dilemmas are apparent, as opposed to the Vietnam experience, where the US lost a nonsense war to the Vietnamese, who obviously were not nazis. So the glorifying thing fell apart. And so we have movies like these or The Thin Red Line. Plus, WWII movies were a big thing in the 50's, 60's and 70's. by the 80's people were getting tired of the subject. Now with books like Tom Brokaw's, the war and the generation who fought it are seen in a different light. 2 stars because Lee Marvin (and in all fairness the rest of the cast also) does a very good job. And for the wooden Christ part.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best war films.
Review: I love this movie. It has good characters and a great plot. Mark Hamil does an excellent job acting. Saving Private Ryan was good...Apacalypse Now was great...but he Bid Red One is the best WW2 film out there. It is a truely awesome movie which is way overrated! This film is as good, and better than the majority of war flicks. It definitely be considered by any movie fan. Highly reccomended.
Rating:
Summary: harmed masterpiece
Review: I read all your reviews and I realised I wasn't the only fan of this movie, it's the strongest movie I've seen about this war. The only problem is that Sam FULLER's movie originally lasts MORE THAN 4 HOURS, it was cut by the studio and this copy you're so amazed about is unfortunately a clip of THE BIG RED ONE, the movie that you can only READ fully (check at the books). It still remains a good movie but we must hope to see one day on DVD edition the original movie wich is sometimes shown at the french "cinématheque".
Rating: 
Summary: An all around excellent portrayal of the 1st Infantry
Review: I thought this film was an instant classic worthy of praise such as that of "Saving Private Ryan." The film was an in-depth portrayal of the first infantry. It is a good overall film with both it's high point's and low points.
Rating:
Summary: Passable in its day, dated and archaic now
Review: I will refer to the movie itself rather than the technical merits of the DVD, as there are plenty of websites that can provide that information.
The storyline is basic, but believable - a simple story of a rifle squad in the First US Infantry Division in World War Two. Despite what other reviewers have said, this Division did indeed see action first in North Africa, Sicily and France. Samuel Fuller was a combat veteran of this division, and many of the film's details ring true.
Acting is good; Marvin plays - well, Lee Marvin - in typical understated style. Mark Hamill is surprisingly good; other younger actors are proficient, not outstanding.
Drawbacks to this film are many; overall the film has not aged well. Advances in special effects and historical knowledge on the part of moviegoers, as well as much better films in recent years dealing with the same types of themes make this one seem tired and old. D-Day in Normandy is filmed in bright sun on an Israeli beach; the real D-Day was on an overcast day and is much better presented in Saving Private Ryan. German equipment is poorly done and Israeli equipment is used as a jarring stand-in (this may not bother many filmgoers, so take with a grain of salt).
Special effects are dated; modern CGI inserts realistic tracer fire; current sound effects can really enhance the viewing experience and place you in the scene. This film does none of that.
Dialogue is trite and attempts at humour not well done - Marvin joking when a young soldier loses a testicle to a boobytrap seems particularly forced. There is little realistic gore and deaths are mainly bloodless and almost serene. Little horror to the action sequences as in better and more recent films like Band of Brothers or SPR which are now the standards to be judged against.
However, main characters are likeable; some would say cliched but guys like this really lived and breathed so that is not a great criticism. Some nice scenes; the concentration camp scenes are sobering, and if one or two scenes try too hard to make a point, the intentions are good and this makes for good light entertainment.
Biggest criticism is that this film shares common flaw with most "army movies" in that the main characters seem to be the only soldiers in the entire world. Real life practices are not even hinted at and suspension of disbelief has to be extreme for those with a military background or working knowledge of real military practice. Twelve men simply wouldn't walk around doing things the way they are presented in the movie.
Even die-hard Lee Marvin fans will be disappointed by this, but if you don't take it all too seriously, you can have fun.
Rating:
Summary: Sam Fullers'Wartime Bio
Review: I'm a big Sam Fuller fan and I'm glad to see The Big Red One come out to DVD. This is Sam Fuller's wartime biography and only master storyteller Fuller can make it happen. . If possible, see the documentary/biography on Fuller titled "Typewriter, Rifle and Movie Camera." It's broadcast on the Independent Film Channel and the show is hosted by Tim Robbins, Quinton Tarrantino and Martin Scorsese -- all big fans and students of Sam Fuller. Many of Fullers' WW-II exploits with The Big Red One are also in some of his other War movies like "Fixed Bayonets" and "The Steel Helmet". According to Tim Robbins, over one hour of The Big Red One was cut -- I can only hope that a full 3 hour "directors cut" can be located and released.
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