Confusing and Pretentious

Rating: 4/10 (31 August 2000)

Much has been made of Mr. Malik's long retirement and, the tremendous amount of anticipation for his return effort. After I'd seen The Thin Red Line, I was left wondering if he had been cryogenically frozen all these years. It has such a 70s feel to it, and the 70s aspects he uses are one's I find annoying. Two stand out. First, the voice-over that seems to drone on and on, not moving the story, just talking in the background. The second is the ethereal Zen-ness to the story itself to the point of losing this viewer behind. What was this a story about? I was actually rooting that Malik would show up Spielberg in the WWII movie race, but as it turned out, it was Saving Private Ryan that told a gripping story AND imparted deep moral lessons. The Thin Red Line just confused me.