Fat Chartreuse Square

Rating: 1/10 (18 January 1999)

Someone who came in late behind me echoed my sentiments when he asked me: "Is this Thin Red Line?". It starts off with a Robinson Crusoe-like abandoned island with two soldiers whom we find out 15 minutes later are AWOL. The whole Army is AWOL in this movie. I leaned to my companion and said: "They need to Kick it up a notch!".
I cannot believe that I sat through the three hour marathon of an attempt to be artistic and masterful with cinematographic scenery and images. I hoped that it might get better but it never did. Unless you liked Ishtar, Home for the Holidays or Sharky's Machine then this movie plainly stunk!
I am incredulously amazed at the inept reviewers who say that they "loved" this movie or that it even merited a viewing by any other member of the human race. Perhaps they are kow towing to the movie industry or are afraid of all the top name actors in their bit parts. These parts are flung together like a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle which do not fit together.
Okay, there was one small part played by John Cusack that was meritorious as he and a handful of soldiers took the top of one hill. One good scene does not make a movie worth seeing!
It was as nauseating to sit through as a scene where one soldier, with a handful of freshly pulled Japanese prisoners' gold teeth, tortures a Japanese general threatening with the same fate. Later on we see a scene with the same soldier languishing in anguish over what he has done but then the movie fades to another boring scene which was unremarkable. They never tell us what becomes or Mr. Teeth puller.
Please do yourself and yor friends a favor and never see this movie, even on video tape. It is truly that bad!!