The Thin Red Line
by Terrence Malick
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DVD details
Actor: Benjamin Green, Kirk Acevedo, Mark Boone Junior, Penelope Allen, Simon BilligDirector: Terrence Malick
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 170 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-05-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
DVD Reviews of The Thin Red Line
DVD Review: "Thin Red Line" or "Thin Plot Line"
Summary: 1 Stars
I am shocked by the number of glowing reviews this movie received - I saw it on opening day in a theater crowded with active duty military troops (I am a retired vet), and most got up and walked out by the half-way point! And I wish I had walked out too! Having 14 months+ in Iraq, I do not see that our troops would feel much differently about this movie today than they did back in 1999. My feelings are not based on the fact that the movie is "anti-war" - the more accurately a war movie portrays combat, the less likely it is you want to go out and advocate violence. The problem is that The Thin Red Line is very poorly executed depiction of infantry combat and does not provide either compelling characters or credible story that makes you care.
The Thin Red Line is set during one of the most pivotal battles in the Pacific, but there is non of the sense of desperation in the movie. Plot development? What plot? Character development? None of that either. Dialog? Acting? Wooden and melodramatic. The cinematography is gorgeous, but does not save the movie. How many flashbacks to a the same coconut on a beach can a man tolerate? All in all, I was absolutely bored.
If you are interested in a good war movie set in the WWII Pacific Theater of Operations I suggest The Great Raid based on actual events and adapted from William B. Breuer's book about the 1945 liberation of the Cabanatuan Prison Camp on the Philippine island of Luzon. But I suspect that many of those who have given The Thin Red Line a thumbs up would balk at the The Great Raid which in addition to being anti-war, also demonstrates why you sometimes have to fight with its opening a scene of the Japanese massacre of prisoners of war on Palawan.
DVD Review: A Disappointing Film
Summary: 2 Stars
I had high hopes for this film with its inherently courageous material based upon the Guadalcanal campaign. However, the movie itself has a relentless boredom, much more like a Benneton commercial than a feature film. Malick, despite his Days of Heaven classic, lost touch with audiences and maybe even filmmaking over his 20 year absence. The art of conveying ideas and powerful visual metaphors within a story worked with David Lean. With Malick's work here, it's a whimsical, uncertain philosophical reference without meaning.
Several actors like Jim Cavizel were good to watch but overall the movie meandered so much that, when it ended, I thought that they had left off a reel of film.
DVD Review: Boring, Boring, Boring
Summary: 1 Stars
As a 24-year military veteran, this movie was a complete miss and bore for me. I couldn't wait for this slow paced movie to end! A weak storyline and none existent plot further plagued this attempt to personalize war. The overacting of Nolte and barely noticeable Penn do nothing to overcome the poor directing. I still can't grasp why some people give Penn so much credit for this and other performances. His acting skills are simplistic and unbelievable, unless the part includes a drunk or drug addict.
My advice is to skip this movie and choose one of several better alternatives.
DVD Review: Somehow, it did not engage me.
Summary: 2 Stars
Somehow, it did not engage me. It might be because it did not focus to a few people.
I prefer other WWII movies such as The longest day, Saving Private Ryan, U571, Midway.
DVD Review: Here's the Real Scoop on This Movie ...
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm going to tell it like is.
First so you know where I'm coming from. I vote Republican, I like war movies and I can't stand celebrities preaching anti war propaganda.
It's true, "The Thin Red Line" is very different from "Saving Private Ryan". With SPR, you have a small group of guys that you follow from point A to point B. Real simple. Plus a lot of the film is focused on war images. I think that it could even be argued that some scenes in SPR do not represent our veterans very well, such as Matt Damon's character breaking down and crying during the middle of a battle scene. And it seemed like none of the characters got along in that movie.
I have a grand parent that fought in the same place "The Thin Red Line" is focused on. What's different about TTRL is that instead of being solely focused on battle scenes, it humanizes the troops. By that I mean, it puts you right there in the field with them, and makes you realize these aren't faceless soldiers, they're somebody's wife, husband, or dad. SPR did that a bit with Tom Hank's character but that's about it. TTRL let's you really "experience" what it was probably like to land on a foreign island that's rich in beauty but you know you're about to go into battle shortly.
Some people mentioned that this movie is convoluted and that it doesn't focus entirely on one person. That's true, this movie is the thinking person's Saving Private Ryan. If you want to vege out and see combat while the soldiers remain automons then maybe TTRL isn't for you. But if you can watch a movie like the GodFather and follow along and you want more than CGI and special effects then you'll probably love TTRL.
I gave this movie only 4 stars because after the main battle is over, it does amble on a bit but then picks right back up again.
Description of The Thin Red Line
A powerful frontline cast - including Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Woody Harrelson and George Clooney - explodes into action in this hauntingly realistic view of military and moral chaos in the Pacific during World War II.One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of The Thin Red Line in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece Days of Heaven (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 The Thin Red Line 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. --Robert Horton
This serious-minded but flawed effort at bringing James Jones's later World War II novel to the screen might have languished in film vaults had reclusive director Terence Malick not resurfaced with a newer version, the likely spur to this video release. This first attempt, lensed in 1964, offers glimpses of what may have attracted Malick to the project.
Jones's story focuses on two American soldiers during the Guadalcanal campaign, the newlywed draftee Private Doll (Keir Dullea) and Sergeant Welch (Jack Warden), the hardened veteran. Doll is determined to survive whatever the cost, disobeying orders if it will improve his chances; Welch is dutiful yet calculating, resorting to deliberate acts of madness to toughen up his troops by showing them war's own absurdity by example. The clash between the private and the sergeant thus becomes the core to the film, focusing on the "thin red line" between sanity and insanity and depicting how that line blurs for both protagonists.
As directed by veteran Andrew Marton (55 Days in Peking), the film is at its best during sweeping battle sequences capturing the gritty horror of hand-to-hand combat, as the Americans try to take an impregnable wall of caves held by the Japanese enemy. Less successful are portentous scenes and dialogue that underscore this evident parable with a heavy hand; there's a self-conscious art film spin that misfires.The original black-and-white Cinemascope negative shows wear and tear, and early copies betray serious problems in their optical transfers. --Sam Sutherland
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