| The Thin Red Line | | Cast : | Sean Penn, James Caviezel, Nick Nolte | | Director : | Terrence Malick | | Studio : | Twentieth Century Fox | | Format : | Color, Closed-captioned, DTS Surround Sound, Widescreen, Dolby | | Released Date : | January 08, 1999 | | DVD Released Date : | May 20, 2003 | | Language : | English (Subtitled), English (Dubbed), Spanish (Subtitled), English (Original Language) | | Audience Rating : | R (Restricted) | | | BUY THIS DVD FROM AMAZON |
Customer Reviews
| Rating |  | | Date | August 02, 2005 | | Summary | An Existentialist War Movie | Content
 | A fairly faithful rendition of James Jones's novel about an Army company fighting in the Pacific during World War II. Issued a few months after "Saving Private Ryan," this film is worlds away from its predecessor. Whereas the earlier film hearkened back to the old flagwavers of the forties and fifties, flags don't even register in this film. This might well be called an existentialist war movie, which meditates on larger issues: life, death, God, etc. The cinematography is magnificent, but you wouldn't expect any less from a director like Terrence Malick. Not your average war movie, but worth a viewing! |
| Rating | | | Date | July 23, 2005 | | Summary | A war movie with a philosophical twist | Content
| The Thin Red Line is a very strange movie, with the most amazing soundtrack by Hans Zimmer. It is most definitely a war movie, depicting the American take-over of Guadalcanal from heavily fortified Japanese infantry, but (and that is a major but!), the battle is only a (very graphically-depicted) background (and interlude from time to time, as the movie switches to complete action) for an introspective look at the inhumanity of war ("where has this great evil come from?"). There are many phisolophical undercurrents that I still haven't understood in this movie, and I am getting ready to watch it again soon.
The filmography is really amazing, giving the movie a sort of dreamy-reflective mood, underlining the awesome and cold force of nature, with frequent shots of wind in fields of grass and wildlife fighting for survival.
Overall, although this movie is a very strange mix of two movie genres, it's a very touching experience which can leave you speechless if you allow yourself to be taken away by the dream. |
| Rating | | | Date | July 15, 2005 | | Summary | A slow but terrific war film | Content
| This movie is about a company of men who are in combat in Guadlacanal. It starts off with two AWOL GIs, one of them a main ch, on an island with a tribe. They then get caught and are taken onto a ship and interrogated by their 1st Sgt., whose played by Sean Penn and hardly ever in the movie. The movie moves to the Army landing at Guadalcanal and the terrors of combat are shown through various mens eyes on the attack of a hill and a ridge in Charle Company. There are famous and great actors in this movie, including Nick Nolte who is excellent, but if u watch it for the big stars, u need to be ready to not see them in this movie much. |
| Rating | | | Date | June 06, 2005 | | Summary | My Favorite War Film | Content
| When I saw this in the theater I remember being put off by the lack of gore. When one certain character blew his "butt off" I wanted the camera to go down and show it. That's probably the central problem I had with the film. And there was this sense of things closing in around you, which may have been too overwhelming in retrospect. Certainly that's a compliment now, though at the time I wasn't connecting it to the film internally. It's a little difficult to explain. The one scene that caught me by surprise in that sitting was the loading onto the landing craft. There was something about that moment of the going, the getting into, the necessary steps...then the sense of the events and The Machine of war and destruction taking over, and taking these men to those fields. The P-51 flying overhead. It did it for me. The rest felt wrong. I remember Gene Siskel saying he thought the film would have more of a personal impact and stay with you longer than Saving Private Ryan, with its Greatest Generation theme and all that. I thought he was way off target. I agree with him now. The music and images and words of this film have stayed with me over the years and fermented within me. With Saving Private Ryan, not so much. Don't misunderstand me. The viscereal immediacy of that film is gripping, and it certainly has its moments, too. I own it on DVD and saw it twice in the theater. Maybe I'm just having difficulty articulating what it is about The Thin Red Line, and perhaps why I keep editing this review over and over again. I know it when I'm watching it. The beauty the protagonist sees in everything might be what's rubbing off on this viewer. Then there's Penn as a veteren sergeant. His last scene having to listen to that BS speech from the new Capt (Clooney) is just classic. The words at the end (Woody's character, again), drifting across the screen, trying to come to grips with how humanity can do this to itself and yet finding peace in existance itself, whatever it entails. I think that's the kind of moment that will live on long after the shock and gore of Braveheart (good film, still), Starship Troopers (childish), or Saving Private Ryan has subsided. It's poetry, and I usually don't even like poems. But I'm certain that's the right name for these feelings. |
| Rating | | | Date | May 29, 2005 | | Summary | Flawed, sometimes fascinating war film | Content
| Terence Malick's "The Thin Red Line" borrows only the title and general plot from James Jones' novel; the premise of the film is based on the works of William Faulkner, with characters defined by poetic, philosophical voice-overs that are meant to represent their subconscious thoughts. These musings are hit-or-miss; sometimes they seem profound, other times they're indecipherable. In any case, Malick's technique is an original approach to film-making, especially when applied to a war film.
This film is occasionally repetitive (particularly Ben Chaplin's memories of he and his wife), sometimes confusing (the mumbled voice-overs), frequently exciting (extremely good battle scenes), and always eye-opening. |
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