A glorious failure; stunning yet overdone

Rating: Null/10 (13 July 1999)

"The Thin Red Line" is a beautiful, shocking and tragic film about the futility of war and the hopelessness that the soldiers on both sides faced in the wake of Guadalcanal. Unfortunately, it is also a confusing mess of philosophy, poetry and disconnected images. The film could have been improved had Malick chopped off the last hour's worth of film and gotten rid of the pointless voice-overs--the same problem which plagued another of Malick's films, "Days of Heaven."
The beginning of the film evokes an almost Biblical beauty with its images of a paradise and a people soon to be lost as the Japanese and Americans meet in combat. And once the film enters that combat, it can only be described as amazing. Even more than "Saving Private Ryan," this film shows how terrible and pointless battle can be. Men get shot down before they can even take a step forward, a soldier accidentally kills himself with a grenade, the enemy remains almost unseen until halfway through the film--and when we see them they are not die-hard Japanese troops but rather sad, tired and ragged men who are in a situation that is as hopeless as the Americans are. And even worse, Lt. Colonel Tall, played brilliantly by Nick Nolte, is obsessed with taking Guadalcanal at all costs, ignoring the concerns and needs of his own troops in the process. The relationship between Koteas' Staros and Nolte is well-developed throughout the film. And when the climax of battle takes place at the airstrip, the camera swirls around the confusing mayhem of soldiers fighting and cowering--the scenes are both awe-inspiring and terrifying at the same time.
And had the film ended right after this point, it would have been perfect. But it just keeps going on and on, adding in useless bit-parts for actors like Clooney and shots that make no sense, while also spewing out more meaningless philosophical babble. Throughout the last half I kept screaming for the film to end, but it did not. And when it finally did, the last two or three shots seemed tacked-on--I would have preferred a last shot of the boat going away from the rock and then a fade to black.
In the end, "The Thin Red Line," is three films in one. It is a stunningly realistic war movie, a colorful National Geographic documentary, and an inane romantic/philosophical tone poem. Taken together, the film falls apart--although it is a glorious failure. But had the first element stood alone, it would have been something truly special.