Eschews the Cliches of the Genre

Rating: 7/10 (13 July 1999)

I asked for a war movie that eschewed the entrenched clichés of the genre, and I got it. But I'm not sure I liked it (the clichés are quite comforting, it turns out). The Thin Red Line seems to me to depict how war must be. It includes everything -- valor, cowardice, terror and incompetence, but mainly uncertainty and profound longing to be elsewhere.
Paul Fussel (in his book "Wartime") talks about the mindset of WWII soldiers: they had a job to do and they wanted to get it over with and go home. This movie captures that outlook -- the characters' motivations are genuine. John Cusack's character is about as close as the movie comes to depicting traditional heroism and Private Ryan-style bravado. But even then, it's permeated with pragmatism. Taking the bunker means getting the job over with. Nolte's character is motivated by insecurity and careerism. This is his last chance to advance his career in a war. And he has Travolta's character -- younger than him but a general already -- goading him. Captain Staros is also quite credible. As Nolte tells him, he's not a coward or an incompetent, he's just not cut out to do what needs to be done. And he's probably right. In a traditional anti-war movie, Nolte would have been demonized for ordering the frontal assault rather than the flanking maneuver. Here, he's vindicated by events. That's what was necessary.
OK, all that said, I'll join the chorus in condemning the ponderous narration, the torpid pace, and the excessive length. I think, however, that these were part of Malick's attempt to convey a sense of what war is like. Not some great, relentlessly heroic adventure, but a lot of boredom, waiting, and agonized thinking about home, punctuated by violence and terror. While all that may be true, one must ask, "does it work as visual narrative?" Not always, which is what leads, in my view, to the many strongly negative reactions to this movie (along with the inevitable comparisons with the far more traditional Pvt Ryan).
Of course, the film looked great. One never thinks about the natural world in which this war was fought, nor of the indigenous people. The scene toward the end when the Japanese infantry simply appears out of the forest along the river is great, as is the scene depicting the assault on the bunker. That equals the battle scenes in Ryan. The acting is solid all around. The music, on the whole, worked, though some scenes of silence would have been preferable (and I kept thinking that a Philip Glass score would have been perfect). All in all, The Thin Red Line is an ambitious, though qualified, success. It's just not fun to watch.