Baraka with Bombs

Rating: Null/10 (21 February 1999)

About an hour after settling into my nice comfy high-back chair, I began fiddling in my left ear and discovered a rogue hair growing far out away from its pals. I tugged on it and found it rather tenacious. The pain this tugging caused was mildly pleasurable, but after a while I gave the hair a good yank and its short life was over My nose hairs need plucking more regularly too.
Later on, the cinema whisperer who is always behind me on my right (4 o'clock high), started up. This time he was a young lad, continually asking his father questions like, Why did that man fall over?', What's that red stuff he's holding? Why does he keep staring?
Why indeed does Private Witt keep staring? And staring. For once I was not irritated by such dumb cinema noise. I had finally given up caring after two hours that seemed like five, yet this crashing bore of a movie droned on for nearly another hour in much the same manner.
To be honest I was suspicious from the early scenes which were un-involving and documentary like. But this was Terrence Malick I said, who had given us two superb films in the seventies, he knows what he's doing, so sit back and enjoy the lovely scenery. Well it was nice and we saw lots of it, again and again; Lots of fabulous shots of light streaming through the tree-tops; Little story mind. Little characterisation though as we are introduced to many characters in a fleeting manner, all rather numb and one-paced.
When the action finally kicks in it is very effective and gruesome. However having had such a brief introduction to the characters we don't know how to relate and can't feel for them. They're just Grunts. Some with stomachs, some without.
Nolte gives us the strongest performance as the pushy colonel, but it is also the most physical. The performances of the other actors take place behind the eyes, we see what they feel, what they are thinking. Voice-over after voice-over relate some grunt's philosophical mumblings. This wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't so repetitive and half the time I couldn't distinguish one grunt from another, they were all so similar.
The central performance of Jim Caviezel as the human AWOL was the most tedious of all. A face to get fed up with.
It is Malick who is seriously at fault here, over-doing the beautiful haunting imagery, the flashbacks and the voice-overs, and under-doing the story. He re-visits the well dug trenches of Paths of Glory, Full Metal Jacket and Saving Private Parts - War is hell, men become savages, generals are morons, doesn't this little scenario sum up the stupidity of war etc etc. Only this time it's shot like some new age nature documentary where a bit of David Attenborough's clearer diction would have certainly been of help.
Only David would have cut better. A good hour could have been sliced out with little loss to the story. What would have been far better though would have been better dialogue and more rounded characterisations.
I bet they were there in the book.
The music score matched the visual proceedings perfectly, being one-noted and always straining toward a point of finality without ever reaching it. When I found out it was from Hans Zimmer whose scores never fail to bore me, it all made sense. The cinematography however was superb throughout,the images were stunning, the action set pieces, exceptional and gruesome.
Be poetic and haunting Mr. Malick but please get on with it next time; and I sincerely hope there'll be a next time.