Brilliant, beautiful, poetic - but not for everyone!

Rating: 9/10 (20 March 2001)

The Thin Red Line is such a hard film to review:
On one hand; its gorgeous filming, powerful acting and poetic scripting combine to create one of the most powerful and brilliant war films of all time.
But on the other hand; the fragmented nature of the story, sometimes hard to follow battle scenes and lack of a clear outcome count against it. These factors are even more telling against the casual viewer who may find it long and boring (see previous reviews).
But I was held transfixed by the beauty of both the pictures on the screen as well as the poetry in the various voice-overs, perfectly accompanied by the Hans Zimmer score. An image that will stay with me forever is of the injured bird struggling to move....
Not a movie for everyone, but classic all the same. 9/10