highly recommended for anyone who's ever thought about life, love, beauty, or evil

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 1999)

"The Thin Red Line" is about the incredible paradox of life, the surpassing beauty of the world, and our exalted ability to both appreciate and to destroy. Where does the beauty come from? Where does the evil come from? How should we respond to the beauty of life, of nature, of love? Director Terrence Malick responded by giving us a movie about trees and leaves, stems and seas of grass, a war film set in paradise.
There is no plot or story in the ordinary, manipulative sense: only life. A handful of dirty twenty year old soldiers begin looking and sounding alike, but only simple-minded critics would complain that the characters weren't clearly delineated. It didn't really matter who thought what, only what they thought. There is nothing overt about this film, no "star", no easy payoff. Perhaps all great art is subtle, and this is great art.
Apologies to Sean Penn's reputation, but I expected carnage and vulgarity, and there was very little (only a fraction of, say, Private Ryan's bloodshed). I saw it last night, and my only regret is that I didn't bring my (pre-teen) children, because everybody should be so lucky as to see Terrence Malick's work on the big screen. (Fortunately my wife will be able to bring them later this week.) This film is worth seeing for the Nature in it alone, even if you aren't blown away by impossibly beautiful cinematography, poignant writing, and GREAT acting. We see through Jim Caviezel's eyes, much as we saw through Omar Sharif's eyes in Dr. Zhivago. Pacifists and poets both, forced to observe a war in which they want no part.
The "message" of the film is anti-war, but the bigger message of the film is: why isn't life itself message enough?