George Clooney Movie:

Editorial Review:
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

Description of The Thin Red Line [Region 2]:
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

The Thin Red Line [Region 2] Reviews:
What a waste
2009-12-09 - I notice that many of the negative reviews talk about "Hollywood liberals", etc. so I want to make it clear that my negative review has nothing to do with politics. I'm somewhere between Noam Chomsky and Leon Trotsky, definitely no Neocon so I'm not at all averse to movies that show the negative side of US imperialism and wars such as Apocalypse Now, Full Metal Jacket, and War Inc. I also don't think that WWII was simply "the good war", there were many things the US did in that war that were morally questionable. But there is a difference between providing a balanced view free of flag waving and showing a distorted vision of history as this movie does.

During WWII the japanese lived by the Bushido warrior code. Many, perhaps most, of their soldiers would rather die than be taken prisoner. As a result they were vicious and ruthless to soldiers from the other side that surrendered rather than fight to the death. We see no evidence of that in this movie at all. The Japanese seem cowardly and foolish cowering and running from the Americans who often seem brutal for no reason. The monologues that various cast members have show no trace of historical context. They ponder the insanity of war and the evil of man with no recognition that the Japanese attacked the US less than a year before and that the Japanese had several years history of some of the most vicious brutality against civilians and captured enemies that the world has ever seen. My main problem with this isn't just that its morally questionable but that its completely historically inacurate. The US soldiers felt that they were defending democracy and their country. We can question whether those views were really true now with hindsight (I think they were) but to pretend they didn't exist is just lazy film making.

To make matters worse this movie is just unbelievably long with long sections of brooding, grass waving, jungle life, flashbacks, etc. It does look beautiful but there is no character development or narrative flow. I fast forwarded through parts of the movie and it still seemed to take forever. I can only imagine what a hellish experience it would have been to be stuck in a theatre for almost three hours and watch this.

It all seems like a terrible waste because the few battle scenes that exist are fairly good, the cinematography is beautiful, and the cast is amazing but none of them have any interesting lines to say. One of these days I hope someone makes a great film that shows the story of Guadalcanal but this sure isn't it.

Terribly Flawed Movie
2009-09-24 - I can overlook the filmmaker's desire to make an antiwar movie and incorporate some vague Eastern, Buddhist message of nonviolence, but I cannot allow, without censure, the failure to provide proper historical context, the absence of which serves to demean and disparage American soldiers fighting under immense pressure and unbearable conditions against an implacable, cruel, and barbaric Japanese enemy. This film depicts American soldiers bayonetting Japanese soldiers who had surrendered and callously killing Japanese soldiers who posed no threat to them. Although there were certainly instances of this conduct, where is the proper context and history to explain WHY American soldiers reacted to this enemy in this manner?

On Guadalcanal, Marines were killed and mutilated by the enemy--ears cut off, genitals cut off, etc. When corpsmen attempted to help wounded Japanese on the battlefield in the 1942, other nearby wounded Japanese soldiers, pretending to to be dead, shot these Americans trying to save the lives of their own fellow Japanese soldiers. The Japanese launched human wave banzai attacks, willing to sacrifice hundreds of their own men to kill but a few Americans. Review the Battle of the Tenaru for examples of Japanese fanaticism on Guadalcanal (about 800 dead Japanese to kill less than 40 dead Marines). The Japanese almost always refused to surrender, and employed ruses to make Americans believe they were surrendering, only to then ambush them when the American soldiers' guard was down. They granted absolutely no quarter to Americans captured--they killed all prisoners on Guadalcanal, usually in an horrific manner employing inhumane torture. Why should Americans have fought any differently than they way they did in response? And since over 90% of the Japanese never surrendered and fought to the death, how would you have reacted to this enemy?

I invite the reader to examine Winston Groom's "1942" and Iris Chang's "The Rape of Nanking" to understand the unparalleled brutal, bestial, and absolute evil military culture practiced by the Japanese during WWII. Captured American soldiers on the Bataan Death March, who suffered from dysentery, were given a choice if they stopped to relieve themselves: eat their own feces or be bayonetted or shot. More than a few complied and ate their feces, only to be shot anyway. Japanese soldiers practiced cannibalism on American prisoners, cutting them open while alive and removing their liver to be eaten with sake. They routinely beheaded POWs with their swords and routinely bayonetted soldiers in hospitals recovering from wounds and illness. If you can bear it, read about Japanese atrocities in Nanking, Singapore and Manila (contests to see who could cut off the most heads, gouging of infants' eyeballs, burying people alive, burning people alive, and torture beyond anything depicted in Dante's Inferno). And all I have related herein is only the proverbial tip of the iceberg.

So if a filmmaker wishes to depict American war crimes, first provide the context for those crimes and explain why American soldiers were at risk accepting the surrender of any Japanese soldier, few though they were. This film fails miserably in providing that context and for that reason alone is severely flawed.

A Disappointment Despite the Hype
2009-09-15 - To be charitable, this is a mixed bag. Boasting some nice cinematography and fine acting, there was no reason this couldn't have been a better movie than it was.

Think about it. Early in the movie we are treated to multiple characters, Army officers and soldiers mulling over their imminent landing on the crucible of Guadalcanal. We become aware that combat is intense. And we learn that the Marines have already secured the beaches and are *advancing.* This is a remarkable and heartening change after the devastating blows of Pearl Harbor, the fall of the Philippines, Guam and Wake Islands and a number of very costly sea battles. The tide is beginning to turn! Yet as we are introduced to senior officers, we learn that the first clear indication of a major character's motivation less than 12 months after seeing the US Fleet on the bottom of Pearl Harbor is not what you might expect. It is not protecting our country. It is not doing his duty. It is not even vengeance against those who are rampaging across China, Indochina and the Philippines and the Western Pacific. It's professional advancement.

Men awaiting an uncontested landing from their Liberty Ship agonize over their fears -- and little else. I believe if our troops in the REAL war had thought like these characters prior to battle, the War would have ended far differently. But it didn't, did it?

Even the Japanese enemy is portrayed in ways that are clearly at variance with history. There are two kinds of Japanese in this movie. The first is a close relative to the Predator. Invisible. All-seeing. Remorseless. Omnipotent. And yet, when the tide of the battle in the jungle suddenly turns for reasons unknown and US troops suddenly advance into an enemy camp (just trotting in) their erstwhile enemies are caught undressed and utterly unprepared, without an ounce of fight in them. They seem absolutely eager to surrender. In the World War II that my father fought in, Japanese soldiers were quite capable and very brave, often to the point of fanaticism. Few were captured, many were killed because to surrender was a sign of dishonor. Who but modern Hollywood would embark on an "epic" (not MY word) look at WWII in the South Pacific with an obvious (and willful?) lack of understanding of the code of Bushido?

One modestly realistic and compelling theme is the conflict a junior officer experiences in attempting to reconcile his desire to protect his men from useless sacrifice and his imperative to follow orders. It is handled well.

Half a century later it's not out of line to revisit WWII with less of the patriotic fervor that often infused the movies of that era. But when the New Left climbs into the Director's Chair, hang onto your hats. You'll get a process that can drain even "the Good War" of meaning, of virtue and of historical accuracy. Two stars -- at best.





A very moving film
2009-08-24 - I definitely liked this movie a lot, probably more so than Saving Private Ryan. Both films depict the horrors of war, and although SPR is infinitely more graphical about it, I felt that somehow The Thin Red Line drove the point home better than than SPR. The movie is not perfect ... at some points I wished it had been a bit less poignant ... I really thought that sometimes it just tried a bit too hard.
Also, the few battle scenes that are in the film are not very realistic, I think. But don't that let that put you off an otherwise excellent movie with many beautiful pictures, flawless acting and not least a superb soundtrack. When you've sat through the whole movie and see the credits roll, you will KNOW that your time was not wasted.

Revisionist At Its Weakest
2009-07-12 - I had an art teacher once who taught a revealing parable about art specifically, and life in general. It goes like this:

When explaining the crimson stroke of an accepted genius - he described the angst, the anger, the pain of the artist; the revel that's born of a brilliant spite. When a member of the audience asked how he knew all this - the teacher explained that a lifetime of study and understanding art gave him the ability truly see the work for what it was.

The person laughed and stood up. It was the artist. Before walking out he said he liked the color red.

This film is the product of a lifetime of 'study & understanding' by the sideliners/observers with a heavy dose of anti-American guilt. While the quality of the filmmaking is extraordinarily high, the storytelling is laughable. More a product of pacifist revision rather than a story of the men who fought that horrific battle of 1942-43.

Another example of a comic book, aka 'graphic novel', gone awry in the real world.

That the cast is made up of a Hollywood Who's Who among anti-war activists should've been my warning of what was to come. I'm genuinely surprised that Tim Robbins wasn't in the production.

Not to fault the left. A good anti-war film can be done and done extremely well. Even received by the right. Kirk Douglas/Stanley Kubrick's brilliant film 'Paths Of Glory' is a prime example of the insanity of combat. Respected by all as a testament to taking every approach and trying every avenue before committing the lives of the valiant to suffering and even death.

I wish Director Malick had taken the Apocalypse Now approach and given us a focus - one character whom we, the audience, could view the lens of doubt and failing faith. This film fails on its own merits and its sincere, but ridiculously holier-than-thou sermon.