Yes I do understand this movie and, yes it is boring and bad.

Rating: 1/10 (29 August 2000)

It took me a while to get around to seeing this movie after seeing "Saving Private Ryan." I knew there was a reason I was trying to avoid it. It is a terrible movie. How is it bad? Let me count the ways.
Number 1, it is NOT poetic. If you think the mindless platitudes spouted by the various and indistinguishable narrators in this film is poetic, then you must think Brittany Spears is more poetic than Shakespeare or Frost. Doesn't it bother anyone that every narrator regurgitates the same mindless drivel? Could anyone tell, from narration alone, which character was speaking? The idea that these narrations are supposed to be the thoughts of individual soldiers is about as believable as guests on the Jerry Springer Show using more than one multisyllabic word in the same sentence. Real WWII soldiers don't think, "What is the face of nature? Do I know you? Are you my friend or my enemy?" They think, "How am I going to stay alive so that I can get back home to my family and friends?" It is an insult to real WWII veterans to suppose that they thought the same thoughts as shallow models in Calvin Klein Cologne commercials.
Number 2, One can't care about the characters. Characters in this film seem to have been an afterthought added at the end, as if the director made the film then said, "Oh yeah. We need characters. Throw in a guy who fantasizes about his wife, a guy with a smirk who talks about inner strength, twenty guys who look scared, and a maniacal colonel. We'll pick up each character's story line at random, then dump it completely at the first opportunity. Characters, who needs 'em anyway?" At the end of the film I was still seeing just a bunch of faces under metal helmets, not being able, or caring, to distinguish one from the other. It is understandable that this happens in the beginning of the film. But if, at the end, it is still happening, it is unforgivable.
Number 3, It is boring. No, you can't dismiss me as someone who needs action to be entertained. "The Accidental Tourist" is a great movie, yet its pace is slow and methodical. Slow and methodical does not mean pointless and meandering, which is what this movie was. It wandered around for 3 hours, not knowing where it was going, and ended going nowhere.
Number 4, Didn't it bother anybody that every soldier narrator had a southern accent? Do they think that somehow that sounds more American? It ended up sounding annoying. I suppose they could have called this "The Thin Redneck Line."
All in all "Saving Private Ryan" is light years ahead of this movie. That movie showed the daily grind and sacrifice made by soldiers, and in doing so was ten times more eloquent than the flowery empty language that tries to pass as poetry in "The Thin Red Line." Avoid seeing this bombastic, thoroughly forgettable movie.