The Thin Red Line Review
by "Steve Rhodes" (Steve DOT Rhodes AT InternetReviews DOT com)December 30th, 1998
THE THIN RED LINE
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 1998 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): ** 1/2
Where's a ruthless studio head when you need one?
Most of the time, avid moviegoers search out the showing of the director's cuts of movies. Writer and director Terrence Malick's THE THIN RED LINE, based on the James Jones novel, will have many wishing in vain for a vastly trimmed down and focused studio cut of the picture.
At two and three quarter hours long, the movie meanders throughout but not nearly as bad as in the relatively pointless first and last acts. The movie might be a candidate for the record book in that it is perhaps the first movie that would be improved if viewers skipped the entire first and last half-hours, when little of consequence occurs.
As the year's other movie about World War II, THE THIN RED LINE will naturally be compared to Steven Spielberg's masterpiece, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. Whereas Spielberg's film is never less than breathtaking, Malick's vision is much more ethereal and removed. People die horribly in both films, but Malick's movie, with its montage of helmeted Hollywood stars, knows how to create striking visuals but not compelling characters. Deaths in THE THIN RED LINE are likely to leave audiences dry-eyed and detached.
Nature, on the other hand, is so gorgeously presented that the film looks like a long episode from The Nature Channel. The camera looks long and lovingly at all of the flora and fauna. (The movie was filmed in the beautiful Daintree rain forest of Australia.)
The biggest difference between the two movies is that SAVING PRIVATE RYAN has a plot. THE THIN RED LINE contents itself with showing some of the fighting at the battle of Guadalcanal and doesn't feel the need for any structure.
The actors are hard to recognize under all the grime of war, but from the credits it is obvious that any man with Hollywood connections tried to get himself a part. Cameos by John Travolta and George Clooney bracket the movie at the beginning and end. In between a host of stars drop by the set to act their parts.
Most notable perhaps are Sean Penn as 1st Sgt. Edward Welsh and Nick Nolte as Lt. Col. Gordon Tall. Penn's performance is as beautifully understated as Nolte's excellent work is purposely over the top. Nolte plays an old soldier whose problem is that up until WW II he hasn't had a war in his 15 years in the service, so he wants to make the most of this one and hopefully win his general's star. If this means that he has to place his men needlessly in harm's way, then so be it, since this is war after all.
In the supporting cast, John Cusack does a nice turn as Capt. John Gaff. The captain is a hero who wears his garland of victory heavily.
Malick makes extensive use of voice-over for the characters to express their inner thoughts. Some of these are moving, but too often they end up sounding trite and false.
Even if it drags frequently, the movie does illustrate the horrors of war. "Who's doing this?" one of the grunts asks. "Who's killing us?" The film asks the quintessential anti-war question of "Why?" but provides few hints at the answers.
THE THIN RED LINE runs needlessly long at 2:46. It is rated R for wartime violence and gore and would be fine for teenagers.
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