The Thin Red Line (DVD)

The Thin Red Line is one of the greatest war movies yet made. Subsequently it is not an easy film, and if you are looking for glorified scenes of battle, look elsewhere. When I first saw this film I hated it, because like a lot of good art, I hadn't yet got to grips with it. Firstly, the film uses an omniscient style to enter in and out of the characters thoughts and emotions. It is an exploratory film, using the process of film to juxtapose Fighting Man and Nature. We dip inside some of the characters but never really long enough to build close connections. This will irritate you, but it is all a part of the perspective this film is going for: war ...  Read the complete review

"What is this war in the heart of nature?" asks Private Witt (James Caviezel) in the opening shots of Terence Malick's brilliant and confused Second World War film The Thin Red Line. Witt's voice-over narration is our frequent guide through the American soldiers' battle with the Japanese for possession of the Pacific'’s Edenic Guadalcanal, at first it is very helpful and necessary, but later on it becomes the death of the film. His foil is Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn) whose weary cynicism sharply contrasts Witt's elegiac spirituality, and leaves us wondering if there may be more dangerous enemies among them than in front of them. This ...  Read the complete review

Thin Red Line another great war movie, or so we thought form all the hype. If you haven’t seen the film yet, and want to, surely you can understand our excitement. If you were suckered into actually paying to see this film, I pity you. “But it’s got George Clooney and John Travolta in it,Yeah. If you added the entire screen time of Travolta and Clooney, you’d end up with enough time to tie your shoes. Actually, if you added up their time, Woody Harrelson’s and Sean Penn’s, you wouldn’t even have enough time to have a shower. Considering the movie is fifteen minutes shy of three hours, putting every shot of these actors in the ...  Read the complete review

Let's face it. After Spielberg's gut-sputtering thrill ride through the Normandy landings, nobody was going to get The Thin Red Line. This is not an easy film to enjoy. Ponderous, funereal, about an hour too long, filled with pointless and distracting cameos. Travolta wears a silly moustache and spends five minutes looking out to sea; Clooney turns up for his pay check a couple of minutes from the end. A grim war poem about a bunch of soldiers landing on one side of a tiny island, battling their way across it, and getting transported off the other side. A grim war poem filled with dreamy shots of parrots and lizards, while GI Joe ponders on man's ...  Read the complete review

The Thin Red Line is a 1998 film directed by Terrence Malick - making a much-anticipated return after a 20 year absence. The film is a visually striking (and incredibly long) anti-war epic about the bloody battle to capture the pacific island of Guadalcanal from the Japanese in World War 2 and weaves in and out of the experiences of several main characters and countless secondary ones. We see events only from the American point of view and key characters include Private Witt (James Caviezel), a sensitive soul with a penchant for going AWOL in the jungle, Private Bell (Ben Chaplin), who survives the horrors of war by daydreaming about his seemingly perfect marriage, the ...  Read the complete review