The Thin Red Line

The circumstances around Terence Malick's <i>The Thin Red Line</i> are sometimes more talked about than the film itself. The reclusive director had made a big splash in the Seventies, but there followed two decades of silence. When he finally reappeared in 1998 to direct this adaptation of James Jones's novel about the Battle of Guadalcanal in World War&nbsp;II, many actors were desperate to work with him and he was able to gather a large ensemble cast. He shot over five hours of footage but had to cut it down to three, leaving out many actors entirely from the finished version. <i>The Thin…

As war movies go, this one sucks. I'm pretty sure (although I didn't read it, that the novel (and maybe original screenplay) must have been fantastic, but Terrence Malick really bungled this: no clear vision, no character investment, a ridiculous amount of stupid jump cuts. I was willing to quit 40% into the film but my wife wanted to see the rest (as almost kind of a challenge to see if she could spot another of the many famous that wanted to work with him (and probably regretted it later).

Yeah, this is pretentious. And what makes it worse is that in all of it's art house pomp, it doesn't come across so much as anti-war as it does anti- stopping the Japanese and Germans from their genocidal bid for world domination. It was like they were saying that they are devoutly on the left... so much so that they support the axis powers if only because the alternative is the United States and Democracy and that is somehow more... fascist(?). I don't know, the film suffers from schizophrenia and the message gets lost when you realize that it's a World War II story and not a Vietnam story…

This is a captivating and stunningly photographed depiction of the horrors of jungle warfare. Jim Caviezel is "Witt" - apprehended from some unofficial leave by his Sergeant "Welsh" (Sean Penn) and is interned aboard a troop ship pending court-martial. All of that due process is soon abandoned as their squad is assigned to take an important hill position from an entrenched Japanese force on Guadalcanal. It is a very untypical film, this - whilst there is certainly plenty of action, pyrotechnics, bullets (and limbs) flying all round, this is a much more cerebral look at the impact of war. The…