The Thin Red Line
Chalet Theater

Recently, movie directors seem to love doing movies about the same thing.  First, there was “Dante’s Peak” and “Volcano” two years ago.  Then this past year, there were two more similar natural disaster movies, “Deep Impact” and “Armageddon” and two animated insect movies, “Antz” and “A Bug’s Life.”

Perhaps the most important pair of similarly themed movies, though, are the two World War II epics that garnered a lot of attention, Stephen Speilberg’s “Saving Private Ryan,” which came out late in the summer, and “The Thin Red Line,” which came out last Friday.   

Considering the wide scope of director Terrence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line,” we have decided to cover the film from three very different angles.  The following reviews give three different looks into one of the season’s most highly touted films.
 
Mike Daniels
Editor-in-Chief

Of all the pairs of similarly themed movies that came out this year, the biggest are definitely the two World War II dramas, “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Thin Red Line.”

Having seen both, I think the best way to compare each is with the one phrase that stuck in my head as I walked out of each movie.

Leaving “Private Ryan,” all I could say to myself was, “wow,” over and over again in a reverential and stunned sort of way.

Leaving “The Thin Red Line,” all I could keep saying to myself was, “thank god,” but not because the movie had affected me so deeply.  I was thankful because I was finally out of the theater and done painfully waiting out one of the most boring movies of all time.

The World War II drama is a nearly three-hour long, star-studded, artsy snooze-fest that will leave movie-goers yawning, even though it will win some cinematography awards at the Oscars.

There are lots of reasons why Malick’s over-hyped anti-war machine falls flat, but none is more prominent than its total lack of character development.

The movie is supposed to show what it was really like for the grunts that fought it out on the hillsides and in the jungles of the Pacific against the Japanese. The audience is supposed to feel the same emotion and pain that these soldiers felt. The only problem is, they don’t.

What Malick, who wrote the screenplay, and James Jones, who wrote the book, forgot about any kind of storytelling be it a novel, television show, or in this case, a three-hour long movie, is that the audience cannot become attached to the story until they become attached to the characters.

Instead of developing even one character that the audience can get attached to and follow, the movie jumps all over the place and looks at dozens of different soldiers.  Take, for instance, Sean Penn, who plays one of the more important roles in the movie.  The audience learns nothing about him, such as where he might be from, if he has a family, or even his name.

Movies such as “Braveheart” have proved that people are willing to sit in a theater for more than three hours, but only if they have someone to follow and keep their attention for that long.

Malick is trying to portray the evils of war as far as how it destroys people and nature.  But that theme is lost in an endless barrage of melodramatic sequences of jungle foliage and soldiers who might as well be plants, since they have no identity.  The problem is further compounded by a series of pointless poetic voice-overs which try so hard to be deep and insightful that they are completely meaningless.  In many cases, they are just random words and phrases that are idiotic but that “enlightened critics” of course, will say are powerful and touching.

In making “The Thin Red Line,” Malick should have paid attention to what Speilberg did with his four star “Private Ryan.”  Not only was that movie more entertaining and hard-hitting, it also delivered its message better while accurately showing what is was like for the grunts who fought the war.  Thus, I can only give the plotless and characterless “The Thin Red Line” one star, even though its message was just as strong and its cast even stronger.

*
Bob Hutton
Staff Writer

Geography has always been a major consideration in war movies.  Four times out of five, the entire plot of a World War II picture deals with a soldier’s reaction to where the movie takes place.  Sometimes, it’s a problematic bridge (“A Bridge Too Far”).  Other times, there is the prison camp escape (“Stalag 17/The Great Escape”).

“The Thin Red Line,” the second film adaptation of James Jones’ novel about Guadalcanal (one of the pivotal battles of the war’s Pacific theater), melds war and its environment into one unit.  Soldiers don’t react according to the dictates of their setting; instead, crouched in a sea of tall jungle grass or slogging through swamps, the invading soldiers become as inconspicuous within their surroundings as the bats and birds that view the action from the jungle canopy.  

No one will call this picture a star vehicle. John Travolta and George Clooney, arguably the two biggest names in the picture, barely get five minutes of screen time apiece.  Characters come and go off and on the screen without getting a chance to establish themselves as personalities.  

Nolte is allowed the plurality of screen time but overreaches as a bellicose colonel.  A cynical sergeant played by Sean Penn ends up as the most compelling character despite appearing fairly sluggish.

No matter how audiences react, “The Thin Red Line” won’t get away from comparisons to last year’s “Saving Private Ryan.”  But besides being about the same war, the two movies have little in common.  While “Ryan” combined graphically unsettling visuals with a relatively traditional story of heroism and sacrifice, “Thin Red Line” portrays a more “knowing” depiction of the war similar to movies like “Platoon” and “Casualty of War.”  While Speilberg meant for audiences to be shocked when an American soldier guns down surrendering German machine gunners, “Thin Red Line” is relatively nonchalant in its depiction of brutality toward Japanese prisoners.  

The two movies also differ in cinematic approach.  With its archetypal characters (the Brooklyn tough, the country boy, the hapless novice) and unambiguous narrative, “Private Ryan” seemed to be a self-conscious homage to movies like “Kelly’s Heroes” and “The Battle of the Bulge.”  It was a war movie directed by a war movie buff for war movie buffs.  

In contrast, “The Thin Red Line” is less a “war movie” and more a “movie about war.” The objective of taking Guadalcanal is eclipsed by the memories and anxieties of the soldiers who spend as much time brooding as shooting.  

Movie-goers who expect “The Thin Red Line” to be a formulaic war story will be disappointed.  Fans of the most famous James Jones adaptation, “From Here to Eternity,” will be more pleased, since both deal with the contrasts of a soldier’s life inside and outside of the war.  All in all, the movie is a visual sonata that will tire Tarantino dialogue junkies.

****
Brandon Padgett
Online Editor

“The Thin Red Line” gives a fresh, yet somewhat long-winded departure from the formulaic Hollywood blockbuster.  Yes, it does have the big names that are usually associated with blockbusters, but they aren’t what drive the movie.  Penn and Nolte react to the catalystic performances given by Chaplin and Caviezel, and the remaining stars serve as distractions in a somewhat complex story-line.  

The viewer is introduced to a multitude of actors that aren’t even given names, just faces.  Then actors such as Clooney and Travolta show up in bit parts that distract the audience from their intended purpose.  Half the theater talked about each of them for minutes at a time when they appeared instead of sticking with the plot.  The only characters with any remoteness of depth were those who also served to narrate the film.  Nolte, Penn, Chaplin, and Caviezel portrayed multi-dimensional characters, yet the remaining actors gave “out of sight -out of mind” performances. 

Getting the unfair comparison out of the way, “Line” is at the other end of the spectrum from “Saving Private Ryan.”  Where “Ryan” gives a concrete story-line depicting war’s adverse effects on it’s participants and a neat, easy to follow script, “The Thin Red Line” takes a more abstract, artistic approach.  Yes, it is one of those “art films” that you hear so much about, but don’t dare go near.  However, “Line” was actually a very good movie.  

To receive the full value of the movie, you have to go in prepared.  You need to pay attention, be able to absorb a lot of random information, and sit somewhere where there’s not a bunch of whiny ingrates complaining about the film’s length and lack of gratuitous violence.  In other words, take your ritalin and avoid 90 percent of the audience. 

The premise that will elude most viewers is that war isn’t the main theme, but it’s the dualistic quality of nature that just happens to be expressed through war.  It’s about how nature can be tranquil and serene while containing elements of extreme violence and insanity and how these events can change and shape the soldiers in individual ways.  

What gives “The Thin Red Line” its freshness is its ability to allow the viewer to take what they want from the movie.  Nothing is absolute. Interpretation is key for the level of enjoyment from the movie.  If you go in and expect another “Saving Private Ryan,” then you’ll be sorely disappointed and bored to tears.  But if you go in with an open mind and little to no expectations, you can take a very moving experience with you.