Dreamy but confusing

Rating: Null/10 (1 November 1999)

I liked "The Thin Red Line" without really being drawn into it. It contains imagery that will stay with me for a long time, and it is a compelling depiction of the grinding journey of numerous characters through the invasion of Guadacanal. It is clearly a labor of love, and the effort shows. It contains a stellar cast that includes Sean Penn, Stanley Tucci, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, with a walk-on role by George Clooney. These are the strong points.
The movie opens with two soldiers that have found an island paradise and are living amongst its peaceful inhabitants when they are picked up by a passing battleship and arrested for going AWOL. They are dropped into a battalion that is storming Guadacanal in a crucial battle for territory. Leading the troops is a zealous commander played by Nolte as a man driven by what he perceives as fate and leadership, but is hiding deep-seated insecurities beneath the surface. The movie basically follows this invasion from beginning to end, and depicts the randomness in which the characters live or die during it.
I mentioned before that there were numerous characters. I should say that there seem at times to be dozens that the film follows from beginning to end, and I frequently had trouble telling them apart. Although I have little doubt the novel the movie is based on follows the same structure, I think the film could have benefited from some strategic trimming to focus on a smaller group. I could not really identify with the characters since there were so many the movie is forced to jump from one to the next so rapidly I often didn't realize it had changed scenes. We see one guy crawling through the grass and then later another guy, cut to so quickly it seems like the same guy.
The movie will undoubtedly suffer comparison to "Saving Private Ryan", the other WWII movie released that year that won acolades for Steven Spielberg. That movie had a clear direction and a definite message, and it focused on a group of characters you could really identify with. Of the two, I prefer "Ryan" for the reasons I stated above.
But "Thin Red Line" is worth seeing for its quiet moments of truth, and the way it convincingly displays the complete futility of war. As we watch men forced to climb through the tall grass up a long hill and get cut down by hidden enemy soldiers, we can see the senselessness of it all, the waste of life. It must be unimaginably frustrating to be ordered to take an action that you know will end your life and accomplish nothing, and be unable to protest.
The movie, as I said, contains visuals that are striking. We see things from the soldiers perspective as they creep up the hills of Guadacanal to the enemy guns at the top. There are sunsets, and native children swimming in the crystal tides. There are closeups of captured enemy soldiers that express their fear and humiliation through their eyes.
Perhaps the thing that will stay with me most is the music. Parts of it contain the clear voices of a Melanesian choir, and is as haunting and beautiful as any music I have heard in the movies. The film has a standard soundtrack that is worth its salt but you may consider springing for "Chants of the Thin Red Line", which contains exclusively Melanesian chants used in the film, sung by various choirs of the Blessed Islands.
"The Thin Red Line" deserves to be admired for its boldness in not attempting to be a carbon copy of so many other war movies, or a pale imitation of "Saving Private Ryan". It wants to be a dreamy overview of war in its own right, and it accomplishes that goal. Perhaps it is best to view it in the right mood and simply allow it to wash over your mind, and then remember the parts that struck you.