A Very Good Effort from Malick, Could Have Been Great

Rating: 8/10 (24 May 2005)

Terrence Malick is a great director. Badlands is credited on my top 20 films of all time. Days of Heaven was a four star movie also. The Thin Red Line was sometimes a struggle to get through, but one of the best features about this film is that after watching it, it felt very complete. You had truly seen a full movie.
There are some faults with this film which prevented it from being on Malick's mantle of masterpieces. One, many of the death scenes seemed very cliché and came off as sappy. The flashback scenes to America are very pretentious, tiresome, and ultimately pointless. Third, as many users have said this, it is a struggle to watch from the 30 minutes to 1 hour and 30 minutes of the movie.
As the opening scenes show we are in for a pretty good movie. We see an alligator staring around while in a swamp. You see young children on a Pacific coast island playing along. Jim Caviezel's character goes there and gets along with the people until a US ship finds him. Disrupting his almost Zen like existence.
The positives of this film definitely out weigh the negatives. The cinematography in this film (like all of Malick's other films) is spectacular. Jim Caviezel does an extraordinary job. He channels many different types of emotions to create an extremely fascinating character. All of the cast was great. Sean Penn did a very good job as a compassionate but sometimes somber Captain. I was expecting him to be in one of his other screaming roles. Nick Nolte is great as the firesome head of the command. I felt he had a very watered down character of this in "Hotel Rwanda". This movie definitely hits something on the emotional level. From the lone scared American soldier screaming out in the rain grasping himself to the broken down and confused Japanese soldiers, it is hard for this film not to tug at your heart. The scenes with the natives are nothing short of poetic. As you hear them sing songs, have their arguments, and play along, you have the feeling that Malick might be exploitive. No, Malick commands these scenes with such grace that I found them to be some of the best scenes in the movie.
Once again we come to one of my first statements: a complete film. It truly is. It does not make you wanting more of it. But it certainly does not make you want to shut off in disgust after watching a nearly three hour films. Although this movie is at times challenging to watch, it is ultimately very rewarding.