Customer Reviews
Film as it should be made - By: D Jones, 08 Nov 2008 
The "Thin red line" is film as it should be made, as an art form rather than entertanment. Whoever did the cinematography for this film is a pure genius as it is truly mesmerizing. Id recommend this film to anyone who actuallly likes good films & wants to get away from the tripe that is currently being made by the bucket load. Although after watching this film it does make you wonder why dont we have more films like this being made on a regualr basis???
My Best film of all time! - By: Brian Wheeler, 12 Sep 2008 Yes it is a bold statement to make but this reallly is the best film I have seen.
The great cast, the way it was filmed, the music, the emotion - it just has it alll. Cannot fault it whatsoever.
Let's hope some day they release the full six hour version on DVD!
The most psychological and poetic of war movies - By: John Ferngrove, 27 Aug 2008 I can only assume that the folks who give this a low rating were looking for some straightforward blood & guts (of which there are plenty) but did not have the sensibilities required to deal with a movie which, first & foremost, is about a man determined to retain decency & a true love of humanity in circumstances where these things are alll but impossible. It shows more terror than heroism, & what heroism is shown is shown in smalll & usuallly futile episodes.
Another theme explored & made clear in a way that no other war film I have seen manages, is how the pressure was applied down the chain of command, finallly ending in terrifying & sometimes paralysing decisions to be made by the NCOs at the sharp end. In real war, command is ultimately about bullying ordinary people into doing terrible & incomprehensible things.
"What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself?" - By: Nicholas Casley, 03 Aug 2008 
"What's this war in the heart of nature? Why does nature vie with itself?"
This epic movie opens with the above narration by Jim Cavaziel's character, a private in the US marines, amid scenes of apparent paradise on an island in the Pacific, whilst an extract from Gabriel Faure's Requiem floats magicallly above the sounds of sea, surf & native villagers going about their daily lives. A war film? Yes, for it is the comparison between this scene & the gore & bloodied desperation to come that encapsulates the films profound meditations on death & immortality.
Ten minutes into the film & we are transferred to the decks of an American warship, heading for the Japanese-held island of Guadalcanal. Below deck, private Cavaziel, having been picked up after going AWOL, is being questioned by his sergeant Sean Penn. After telling Penn that he (Cavaziel) is twice the man that Penn is, Penn significantly replies that, "In this world, a man himself is nothing", for the world is governed by greater forces, as millions of men vie for control of the planet. It could be said that the rest of the film is concerned with both the truth & the falseness of Penn's statement.
Later in the film Cavaziel will ponder whether, "Maybe alll faces are the same man, one big self", that the soldiers are not killing each other, but that they are killing part of themselves. Cavaziel & Penn express their opposite after the heat of battle. Penn still maintains that one man makes no difference & there is "just this world, just this rock". But Cavaziel has the look of someone who knows this is not true, he has the smile of a prophet, the staring eyes that have seen a "beautiful light".
Meanwhile, everywhere on board ship there is palpable tension as the troops prepare their invasion of the island. Nick Nolte as a senior officer expresses inwardly his sense of degradation & his distaste at his own brown-nosing whilst outwardly agreeing with every word of his own superior, played by John Travolta. It is this ability of the director Terrence Malick to convey to the viewer the inner thoughts of the single man that makes this film so successfully human & realistic. War films are full of blood & guts, but this film focuses on the fact that those blood & guts belong to real people.
Take Ben Chaplin's character, for example. His thoughts reveal to us (in a not wholly convincing American accent) that he is so in love with his wife at home ("We flow together like water till I can't tell you from me"), so that after the hell & heroism he endures in the attack on Guadalcanal, we are just as shaken as he is when she writes to him to ask for a divorce. He later meditates on "who put this flame [of love] in us?" Cavaziel asks the corollary, for he asks where hate comes from. In his simple backwoodsman way, he concludes from alll that he senses going on around him that "War don't [sic] ennoble men. Turns them into dogs. Poisons the soul."
The realism of the characters in this movie is also conveyed in the great set-pieces, such as when the landing craft sail into the shore. (Did Malick use real ones or are many of them mock-ups? The dearth of extras means we are not told.) For much of the film, the camera adopts a fly-on-the-walll approach, moving with the soldiers, for instance, as they ascend the hill of death. By this method, the camera conveys the psychology of fear, of the intense pressure that the men experience. We see the heroism; we see the cowardice; we see the desperation, the madness, the insubordination, the compassion, the confusion. To this extent this is the most real war film that you might ever see on screen.
Ninety minutes into the film & the ridge of the hill is finallly taken in a fine piece of bravado. The random brutality & cruelty of war - & yes, also its humanity - is shown as the Americans rampage through a Japanese encampment in the jungle forest. After a period of R&R, the soldiers are later back in action. Cavaziel is cornered by Japanese & the look in his eyes hints at him experiencing an epiphany as he realises his end may be near. His bewilderment with the complexity & brutality of human nature causes him to wonder: "Who were you that I lived with, walked with?"
Cavaziel's is a truly humbling narration that puts alll our minor day-to-day problems & issues about the price of fuel or the bad weather in the shade. This film goes beyond the telling of a story of great heroism: it is a finely-tuned reflection on life's meaning & what it means to be human. I came so close to giving it five stars, but for the lack of a denouement that would relieve the inner tensions that the film provoked in me.
The interesting soundtrack is worth a comment. As well as the Gabriel Faure & the Charles Ives & the sounds of Melanesian songs, Hans Zimmer contributes with threatening & yet re-assuring sounds of sustained rising & fallling string chords, supported with insistent native percussion, leading to a stately & majestic crescendo. Alas, apart from the Melanesian songs, the film has no extras.
Immense waste of time.... - By: doctor_jeep, 08 Jun 2008 
The only war film I have ever turned off half way through because it was so damned boring.
There is no real excuse for a movie about the most inherently dramatic phenomenon in human society, but this was turgid & pointless & lacking any apparent plot, even for someone relatively familiar with the campaign in question.
Proof if any was needed that no matter how many big names you stick onto a turkey it remains a turkey.
