A Masterpiece

Rating: Null/10 (21 January 2000)

Full of rich imagery and detail, Terrance Malick's The Thin Red Line is one of the finest movies ever made. The movie is gripping and poignant, anyone who says its boring and defends that by saying "I got the point" is missing the point. The Thin Red Line is not a lesson to learn, it is a moment to experience, offering the viewer a chance to make his or her own insight. Because of the subject matter and the time of the release, The Thin Red Line begs comparisons to Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan, so I'll tell you, The Thin Red Line is far better then Saving Private Ryan. The Thin Red Line derives its power from characters, not graphic violence. Violence is cheap. It seems that Steven Spielberg nailed every detail recreating the carnage of D-Day, that was his goal, the next step was to come up with a silly plot, then the step after that was to come up with a set of cliche laden characters to carry out the plot to show the violence. Life-like characters and scenes take precedence to life-like violence in Malick's film. The acting is stellar, Woody Harleson, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn (perfect cast), Ben Chaplin, John Cusack, Elias Koteas as well as many of the Japanese actors are all outstanding. The only one out of place is Sergeant McCron (horrible performance by John Savage) who is wildly over-the-top in a movie where everything is so beautifully understated. Fortunately he is only in a couple minutes of the movie. The stand-out is no-name James Caviezel who is stunningly brilliant as Kentuckian Private Witt, who speaks volumes with his face alone. This movie is very intelligent, more so than I can fully grasp, but don't watch it thinking that there is some hidden message you have to discover that most Hollywood movies would pummel you with using every cheap sentiment trick. Simply involve yourself in this movie and soak up every image and emotion and when the final credits role and you listen to the Guadalcanal natives singing, you will have appreciated and enjoined a masterpiece.