|
The Thin Red Line | 
 enlarge | Director: Terrence Malick
Actors: Kirk Acevedo, Penelope Allen, Benjamin Green, Simon Billig, Mark Boone Junior
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Category: DVD
List Price: $14.98
Buy New: $3.80
You Save: $11.18 (75%)
New (61) Used (47) Collectible (2) from $1.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  903 reviews
Sales Rank: 7685
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dts Surround Sound, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Subtitled), Spanish (Subtitled)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Number Of Items: 1
Running Time: 170
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.1 x 0.6
MPN: D2003000D
UPC: 024543030003
EAN: 0024543030003
ASIN: B00005PJ8T
Theatrical Release Date: January 8, 1999
Release Date: May 21, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: NEVER WATCHED!
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com essential video
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
Amazon.com
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
Description
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.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 495 more reviews...
 Fhin Red Line April 26, 2008
First of all the DVD shows pictures but has no sound and needs to be return for a replacement or a refund the DVD is defective[Thin Red Line]
Don't waste your money! March 26, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
If you want to see a movie about what American soldiers experienced during the Battle of Guadalcanal, "Thin Red Line" isn't it. There are two really good movies about Guadalcanal and the men who fought there, "Guadalcanal Diary" and "Pride of the Marines".
Thin Red Line's story is incoherent, and the actions of the men in battle are completely unrealistic. The opening scene with two soldiers somehow abandoning their unit and hiding on a friendly tropical island is ludicrous. The Japanese Army occupied all the islands in that part of the Pacific. Guadalcanal was the very first island we tried to take away from them. Troopships went directly from Hawaii to Guadalcanal. There was no other safe haven until they reached distant Australia. Neither would a troopship stop so that two missing men could be retrieved. Japanese submarines were just as deadly as German U-boats. Troopships never stopped for anything in WW2. And the movie just goes downhill from this point.
The first battle shows the American unit assaulting a dug-in Japanese position. During the American assault one of the men has dreams about being back home in bed with his wife or sweetheart. Have you ever talked to a combat veteran? When real soldiers are in combat, they don't daydream about anything! They hope that they don't mess themselves because they are so scared. They are trying to find a way to stay alive in that incredibly dangerous situation, but at the same time they try to watch out for their buddies. Believe me, they don't daydream about intimate moments with sweethearts when bullets are flying and buddies are being killed or wounded.
This movie presents a fantasy about what a director, who never went to war, thinks it might have been like. He was dead wrong. I think this movie actually is a disservice to the men and women who fought in WW2 (my father was one of those men - he fought in the jungles of the Pacific against the Japanese.) Don't waste your money on this stinker - unless you are satisfied with watching beautiful scenery. I rate the movie as one of the worst war movies I've ever seen. I wouldn't own it if somebody offered it to me for free.
Terrible Acting and Incoherent Story in a Not-So-Warlike Movie March 22, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I rented this film with the hopes of experiencing an excellent piece of cinematography and gritty war realism. What I received was something so unrelated to this dream that it is sickening. The majority of the film is devoted to inane philosophical babbling by simple-minded southern soldiers with bad accents. Every scene is packed full of forced lines and random thoughts that have seemingly no relation to war of any type.
Now, if these scenes were spaced out between the action, and had occurred after some horrendous battle, I could perhaps forgive the film. Unfortunately, they drag on for the majority of the movie. Even so, a few decent battle scenes would have made this experience passable. It is not to be. Foolish looking kids run around bunched up like cheap extras with no idea whats supposed to be going on. Generic dirt clod explosions with a few flames are the high end of special effects one can expect.
For most of the first half of the film we never see the faces of the enemy. This occurs as we are spoonfed scene after scene of ridiculous poetry by "simple soldiers." I give this movie an F for being unable to impart even the simplest notion of what it is to be a soldier. Dramatic deaths are often comical and unbelievably verbose. Specifically, a rather loud mouthed and seemingly mentally disabled soldier accidently pulls the pin out of a grenade in his belt. He stands and looks at the pin, runs into the side of a hill - and then the grenade go off on his belt. Does he explode? No, there is a small pop, and it looks like he has somehow miraculously escaped harm. The slow and overdone death scene that follows quickly disabuses us of this notion.
On the note of historical realism, Guadalcanal was a hardfought and bitter series of battles between the Japanese and Americans with the Japanese reinforcing and shelling American positions during the night. During the day, it was almost constant bombardment by American artillery, aircraft, and naval elements. Unfortunately, this film only succeeds in convincing me that Guadalcanal is (and remains) a tropical paradise for the entirety of the war. There is not a single scene where we experience any ambient fighting sounds. No aircraft flyovers, no machine gun chatter, no distant explosions. It seems apparent that Charlie Company and the Japanese were the only people who actually did any fighting on the island.
Overall, this film is an incoherent an overly philosophical mess of a movie with poor action, nonsensible characters, and no redeeming qualities. I advise people to stay away from this movie and not waste three hours of their life on such a film.
Worst war movie out there February 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've seen some bad propaganda war movies made during WW2 that look fantastic next to this confusing mass of drivel. Luckily, it's on TV a lot, so you can avoid getting burned buying the DVD. Use matchsticks to keep your eyes pried open while you watch it, or if you have insomnia, it's the perfect cure. One very small action segment early on, and then a lot of meaningless anti-war blather and choppy flashbacks are all you have left. After the early action segment where they assault some bunkers and a Japanese base camp, you can go ahead and turn it off and watch a Simpson episode. You won't have missed anything.
 Moby Dick goes to war February 17, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Movies are all about expectation management. If you go into this one expecting a thrilling war movie, you will be sorely disappointed. I think most of the criticisms given here are justified. There is not much character development; the pacing is slow; the story doesn't seem to go anywhere.
So why four stars? Well, I don't think "The Thin Red Line" is really about war. It's a meditation on the nature of reality. Is the universe good, evil, or random? Like "Moby Dick", many different philosophies are presented in the midst of a wandering plot. The watcher is forced to search for some rhyme or reason, but at the same time you can argue that there isn't much there. Your answer might correspond to your own ideas about the meaning of life. Our own lives have defined beginnings and ends, but most don't follow neat plot lines. Many people spend their entire lives searching for their own meaning and purpose.
I'm not crazy about how these philosophies are conveyed. Rule #1 of movie making is "show, don't tell." The characters here only exist to voice their particular worldview, either in long voiceovers or abstract arguments with other soldiers. However, despite the questionable technique, many of these voices are profoundly moving.
***MINOR SPOILER***
I was espcially struck by scenes involving dying baby bird. The camera closes on the bird in close range after a scene of terrible mayhem. Later in the movie, the main character muses that "one man can look at a dying bird and see nothing but unanswered pain... another man looks and sees glory... something smiles back at him." This is the key to the movie and the driver behind the shots of nature in all its beauty and brutality.
***
I didn't really see this movie as an indictment of war. In the words of Robert E Lee, ""It is well that war is so terrible, lest we grow too fond of it." Even a war fought for the best intentions is horrific when it comes to the battle field and individual suffering. In keeping with that, I didn't think Nick Nolte's character was meant to lampoon the evil petty officer, though he's certainly unsympathetic. At the end of the day, I think the movie uses him the same way it uses everyone else, as a mouthpiece for a particular point of view.
Bottom line: requires a lot of patience, but ultimately quite provoking. The cinematography and Pacific Islander singer are quite lovely. Worth watching.
|
|
|
Web Design, Maintenance, and Hosted by K9Sites.com | |