The Thin Red Line

Buy This Item The Thin Red Line  Available from Amazon  Click 'BUY IT NOW' to get price.  on 11-17-2008     One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of <I>The Thin Red Line</I> in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece <I>Days of Heaven</I> (1978), returned to the director's chair after a 20-year coffee break. Malick's comeback vehicle is a fascinating choice: a wide-ranging adaptation of a World War II novel (filmed once before, in 1964) by James Jones. The battle for Guadalcanal Island gives Malick an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling--or simply let the camera contemplate the first steps of a newly birthed tropical bird, the sinister skulk of a crocodile. This is not especially an actors' movie--some faces go by so quickly they barely register--but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private (newcomer Jim Caviezel). The picture's sprawl may be a result of Malick's method of "finding" a film during shooting and editing, and in some ways <I>The Thin Red Line</I> seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete. Yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. <I>--Robert Horton</I> Reader Reviews I've read all of these ramblings about military detail flaws, and unrealistic truths. 'My uncle/father/etc was at Guadecanal Canal', therefore I am the true judge of a good movie. Thats utterly false. A good movie gets a reaction. It gets under your nerves enough(even if you don't like it) to go over to the computer and write a 2 paragraph well thought out response. Well, there are plenty of those ... plenty! So truth be told this movie is brilliant. Its message is of humanity with all its glory and beauty shining through. Its about goodness, friendship and love weighed againts the twisting vines of war, desperation and lonliness. Its about finding a spark within the individual, to acknowledge evils, acknowledge death, but to rise above it. The setting of Guadecanal is no more 'the story' for the Thin Red Line than Vietnam is the setting for Apocolpyse Now. Its just the netting that holds the true meaning of the movie in check. Now granted, if you don't like poetic, beautiful, meandering movies this might not be your thing, but to not like this movie because its 'anti-war' or not factual enough is completly missing the point.

The Thin Red Line Available from Amazon Price: Click 'BUY IT NOW' to get price. Updated on 11-17-2008.

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