What is this great evil?

Rating: 10/10 (21 May 2011)

'The Thin Red Line' is perhaps one of my personal favorite movies of all time. It marks the return of the notorious seclusive writer/director Terrance Malick, who had not completed a film in twenty years prior to this one's release.
This is not your typical war drama. It is so much more. It has everything your normal combat movie would cover, excellently shot battle sequences and explores the turmoils of war. You see first hand how the characters slowly begin to lose their grip on reality, as innocence if the first causality of war.
Malick handles the story by starting out with two American soldiers who go AWOL, somewhere on a small island filled with natives in the Pacific Ocean. This segment, to me at least, in the greatest sign that life really is beautiful. After the AWOL soldiers are back in the navy's possession, that's when we are introduced to Guadalcanal, a small island with a Japanese airfield.
What follows are incredibly scenes of action, some surpassing the likes of 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Platoon.' The soldiers question, in great detail, why they are fighting this war (Not politically but philosophically.) The movie is long, sure, but needs to cover a great amount of information.
The cast is phenomenal. Nearly every actor with a speaking role, (and a few without,) have become big name actors. The best performances comes from the veteran actor Nick Nolte, who plays an aging Colonel. Who he didn't earn himself a Best Supporting Actor nod, or a win, I do not know.