The Thin Red Line

Granted, it is not a classically linear movie...it has multiple points of view among other things. But taken together as a whole, if you have the capacity to be emotionally moved by a painting or a song or a work of art then you might really like this.

If you are in the mood to see cookie-cutter, feel-good swill, avoid this movie! I don't begrudge a lot of people for disliking this movie though, I think a big part of that was the way it was marketed. You just have to be in the right mood for it. A good analogy: You wouldn't go to a bar one night and get all liquored up and then go to an art museum. Likewise, you wouldn't try to attempt to watch this movie with the intent of seeing a feel-good action flick.

Rent it on a rainy Sunday and watch it with an open mind.


BEST FILM OF THE '90s   February 26, 2000
Jeffrey Timko (Niagara Falls, NY)
6 out of 10 found this review helpful

That says it all. I could watch "The Thin Red Line" every day for the rest of my life. If God were a filmmaker, this is what He would make. Comparing "The Thin Red Line" to "Saving Private Ryan" is an exercise in futility. "Saving Private Ryan" is an action film, "The Thin Red Line" is a work of art. Terrence Malick took a long, routine war novel that could have been made into a long, routine war movie like "Saving Private Ryan" and instead, he created something beautiful and has achieved enlightenment on celluloid. I guess some people are too shallow and addicted to popcorn cinema to notice. Send me to the afterlife with a TV, a DVD player, and a DVD of "The Thin Red Line" and I'll be eternally grateful.


Editor's Day Off?   February 25, 2000
Daniel P. Aikin (Quartz Hill, CA USA)
5 out of 13 found this review helpful

I guess Terrence Malik really has been away a long time. Maybe he didn't realize how many great actors he had assembled. Nolte would have had some academy award hardware coming his way had this dog not limped along for nearly 3 hours, when 2 hours, or 90 minutes should have done the trick. Malik could have taken a lesson from Curtis Hanson's work on LA Confidential. His guys took a novel and whittled it down to a movie screenplay that was manageable; while at the same time exploiting the talents of every actor hired. With 30 minutes left in "Thin Red Line" I was warming up the car ready to return it to the rental shop. It didn't have to be that way. It was fragmented. Too many stories going on at once. You just can't bring out the esoteric inner brainworkings of 20 characters in one movie the way you can in a novel. If I was Clooney, Harrelson, and a few others, I'm angry for ever getting involved.


amazingly beautiful film   February 23, 2000
J. (boston)
5 out of 8 found this review helpful

i am tired of people complaining about how long it was and how they could not understand it. that is because the american population have been zapped by explosions in film that they have lost all love for compassionate meaningful cinema. the thin red line deals with the emotional aspects of war...following an epic poem that reveals and resolves several characters time in guadalcanal. it is so much more fascinating to recreate the emotional intensity rather than recreating what a bomb looks like when it explodes. any director with a large enough budget can do that. i don't want to compare the two...but...malick has outdone spielberg in this movie. cinematography. directing. the script. and the acting. this is one of the most amazing films i have seen on screen. the thin red line is nothing short of a masterpiece.


Brilliant, moving, thought provoking   February 21, 2000
Tim Smith (Auckland, NZ)
3 out of 5 found this review helpful

Quite frankly I thought The Thin Red Line was brilliant. Malick's juxtaposition of scenes of the horror of war with ones with the beauty of nature and the Pacific Islands heightened the feeling of the dreadfulness of war. You really got the feeling that this was some kind of sacrilege in this beautiful setting. I know a lot of people didn't like it but I saw it by myself and was really moved. Being a Kiwi it made me think about about all the NZers who gave their lives in that hellhole not to mention all the Aussies, Yanks and Brits as well. Stirring stuff.