Terrence Malick finds poetry even in war.

Rating: 9/10 (8 March 1999)

It is inevitable to compare The Thin Red Line and Saving Private Ryan. The Malick film is thirty minutes too long, because the battle for the hill is complete in itself and the rest of the picture tries to give us practically the complete story of Guadalcanal. But it has a better story than the Spielberg film: the search for Private Ryan is too cute for the purposes of the director. Anyhow, the "war is hell" message is clear in both films. In "The Thin Red Line", Tarrence Malick has achieved the same wonderful poetry of his two previous films, even with a theme that is anything but poetic. His unfailing eye for details and beauty is there all the time. When I read the name of George Stevens Jr in the final credits, I realizad what I had been searching for all through the projection: Malick is a disciple of George Stevens, the successor of the Stevens of "The Talk of the Town", "A Place in the Sun" and "Shane", not of the self-indulgent Stevens of the deplorable "Giant", and his return to movie making the best news of 1998. The music of Hans Zimmer has absolutely no competition as the best of the year and of many years.