The movie is excessively subjective!

Rating: 6/10 (7 September 1999)

The acting is good. The cast is fabulous, the photography is great, and there are moments of nice dialogue. After the first half hour of the movie, although I know about Guadalcanal I failed to see what their mission was. Obviously to get up the hill, but why? Guadalcanal was not was not mentioned in the movie once. The book was about Guadalcanal. The movie is excessively subjective. As an adolescent I loved watching movies such as Fellini's Rome, and other movies that were primarily subjective and invent theories and dwell in the abstract. After years of graduate school and writing I have arrived at the conclusion that the more I know about a subject matter or a definition, the fewer words I have to use to describe them. This movie despite its good sides left me wondering why take so long to say whatever point there was to the movie. I hate to say it, but I think even war-buffs would want it to be more spelled out. If you in a stage in your life that you like to figure things out, even if it has to be discovered through guts and blood, this is a movie for you. I rather have the author lead me to where he wants me to go than to wonder on my own. I like theories but there must be basis for theories, and metaphors. A bunch of guys going in this uphill battle with no explanation of what they are doing is senseless. Could it be the point is that war is senseless? I just wondered! In Apocalypse Now, Platoon, Saving Private Ryan the audience knows what their mission is right away, not in this movie! I wonder if I could I get the point if I were to watch it several times and knew nothing about Guadalcanal. Maybe the dialogue would be clearer but just watching the movie in itself is not enough to go anywhere with it. If I have to read the book, and do research after I watch a movie, it means that the message was not clear in the movie. Movies are about story telling. If you cannot tell the story in a few sentences after you watch a movie then the movie fail to tell a story. This is the case at hand.