This film needs a story.

Rating: 6/10 (17 February 2003)

Beautifully filmed and mostly well acted, this film is nevertheless pretty hard to sit through. Some of the main characters are visually hard to separate from one another; voice-overs by some of them are difficult to pin-point; there is nothing like an over-all story with a beginning, middle and end; and there is a serious lack of sub-stories where they are needed. Especially: a unit is told to capture the summit of a hill; this is so dangerous an enterprise that their commander refuses to order them to do it; someone else takes over and they do succeed in carrying out the assignment; but we are not given any clear account of how they did it, what made the difference - more skill? more courage? unexpected luck? There is here a contempt for normal human expectations, and even Malick's great reputation does not entitle him to that.