War As Seen From the College Dorm

Rating: Null/10 (11 January 2000)

Every so often a film is made which captures a few moments of experience from wartime, which conveys the sights, smells, and fears of those who have been touched by this unique human experience. And then there are films which just pretend.
"Thin Red Line" is one of the latter, it's the work of someone who is trying to imagine what he hasn't experienced and so we get a lot of water cooler philosophy. I wanted to like this film. The falseness of the premise, that soldiers, essentially, are walking philosophers, made that impossible.
The number of muddled themes in this film, the nature of authority, myth of the noble savage, transported me back to some freshman room dorm. There's very little in the way of character or story which compensates for this falseness of premise.
Those who want a feel for the life of soldiers might check out E.B. Sledge, "With the Old Breed", a memoir of Marines at Peliau, which is more cinematic than anything seen in this film. The tightness of relationships forged in combat comes through, the fear experienced is real, the horror of it all is palpable.
I have a lot more respect for the other war film of 1998, Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan", because while that film had flaws it did have moments of real authenticity. Resisting the temptation to preach or choreograph in combat scenes, I think, should be a minimum requirement of modern war films.
Those who enjoy water cooler conversation, who don't want to think "outside of the box" (the conceit of this film is astounding), won't know what they missed.