a beautiful but horrible movie

Rating: 3/10 (16 January 1999)

Torture. Sheer torture. Don't get me wrong, it was beautifully filmed (although poorly edited)--Malick certainly has an eye...but he can't tell a story. I know what you're saying--he wasn't trying to tell a story, he was trying to convey a mood... Well, he certainly put ME in a mood. I was so tempted to stand up in the theatre, while some anonymous voice-over is saying something flowery and oblique about the nature of man and shout "OK, we get it! War is bad, people are messed up and can't we all get along...can we go home now?" Instead, I just checked my watch and realized I still had over an hour to go... There are some great moments and some memorable scenes, but by the end I was so bludgeoned and uninvolved that those moments and scenes didn't make up for the time spent. Nolte is good--although his inner dialogue (which is interchangable with every other inner dialogue in the film) is laughable. Penn is...well, Penn... No one else makes an impression (unless you count Travolta's poor cameo.) It's criminal that Malick chose to change Elias Koteas' character from being Jewish to being Greek. You could tell there was a sub-plot straining to burst free from Malick's dreamlike imagery--something that might have maintained my interest for the interminable length of this film...but Malick successfully undercuts the dramatic impact offered in the book.
Overall...this is as flawed of a movie as "Dune" was... And some people loved "Dune"--so many will love "The Thin Red Line."
Not me, though.