Extremely underrated

Rating: Null/10 (6 November 2001)

There is so much negativity towards this beautiful film that it makes me cringe. Released shortly after Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan," many people seemed to think that THE THIN RED LINE was a "ripoff" of the former. Yeah, that's something I really heard someone tell me. A ripoff. Even though the two were in production at the same time and dealt with totally different topics (the only similarities being that they both were about soldiers in World War II), people called The Thin Red Line a ripoff. Unbelievable.
And if it really is a ripoff (which it isn't... I still laugh thinking about referring to it as that), what an incredible ripoff... I must say.
The people who didn't like this movie didn't like it because it was ingenious. It is based on an ingenious novel of the same title by James Jones (which I have read, it's fantastic), and of course it can't compare to the book, because few movies can. People have blasted Terrence Malick on his adaptation, and while I admit many parts are different than the book, many parts that should have been included were left out, and some were poorly recreated, the film on a whole is brilliant.
The World War II generation was not afraid to fight, is what I've read. But the World War II generation is not every single man... of course there were those who were afraid, those who didn't want to fight. No matter how small a percentage these kinds of men were (and I'm sure that what I've read doesn't lie, I'm sure it really was a small percentage) they did exist. And this film shows it. There is Private Witt, who goes AWOL in order to avoid fighting. There is Corporal Fife, who's so scared he can't even stand still. There's Private Doll, who's eager to kill a "Jap" but when he finally does begins to regret killing a human being. There's Private Bead, the young guy, whose death is one of the most emotional in the entire film. There's Captain Staros (Stein in the book... I still can't figure out why they changed that for the movie) who has become so close to his men that he is afraid to follow any order that might get too many of them killed.

But then of course there's those characters who remind us of what the other kinds of men were like. There is Sergeant Welsh, who knows he's got a job to do and does it without hesitation. There's Lieutenant Colonel Fife, who orders something and expects it to be followed no matter what. There's Captain Gaff, eager to fight but also concerned about the health of his men. There's Sergeant Storm, who stands in the middle of a field at night screaming, "Why don't you shoot me? Come and get me!"
So many different characters, and while a lot of people think the voiceovers were lame and corny, I actually think they blended those characters together very nicely. The battle scenes were well-paced and althought the movie was slow at some points, I never found it to be boring. It was disappointing how George Clooney and John Travolta were advertised as main stars and each was in it for about thirty seconds.
I love this film. And the book.
THE THIN RED LINE - 10/10