Beautiful and lyrical, a scathing condemnation of war

Rating: 10/10 (4 May 1999)

Terrence Malick is one of Hollywood's true iconoclasts. After directing two of the most visually stunning and influential films of the 1970s ("Badlands" [1973] and "Days of Heaven" [1978]), he disappeared from the scene for twenty years, writing and directing nothing until this film. Like his earlier films, "The Thin Red Line" is a beautiful and lyrical work; it is also a scathing condemnation of the effects and consequences of war. Every actor in Hollywood was hot to land a part, and the cast is full of recognizable names. With but few exceptions, this is not a problem for the film. Never have I seen such a cast of big-name actors so thoroughly subjugated to a director's will. Standouts are Ben Chaplin as a young military officer, conflicted by the things he is forced to do and can view only as atrocities, and Nick Nolte as an aging general turned monstrous by his blind, overwhelming pride and ambition. (John Travolta and George Clooney, however, make such brief appearances that they are actually distracting due to their high recognition factor.) Malick is not afraid to indulge in overt philosophizing; contemplating the nightmare of conflict, one character wonders in voice-over, "This great evil: where does it come from? How does it sneak into the world? From what seed or root does it grow?" Caught up in circumstances beyond their control or understanding, these men find themselves demonstrating both cruelty and compassion, brutality and benevolence, and wondering at the meaning of it all. We can do nothing but wonder, too.