Don't be fooled: this is not very good at all

Rating: 3/10 (2 April 2012)

Every group has its pantheon of saints whether they are sportsmen, artists, politicians, salesmen, folk singers, bankers, crooks or, of course, film makers. And for those who earn their grubby pennies in the whacky world of making movies Terrence Malik is up there as one of the greatest saints. So criticising the man and his work is not just like giggling at a funeral but dropping your trousers and taking a dump in full view of the corpse. It just isn't done, and anyone who indulges in that kind of behaviour - or dares to criticise St Terrence and one of his films - is quite obviously a candidate for the funny farm. Well, perhaps. And perhaps, in the case of Malik, perhaps not. With this, The Thin Red Line, just what is the man trying to do?
It is, by turns, part post-modern war movie, South Sea travelogue, art house something-or-other and even touches on your actual straight-down-the-line gung-ho shoot-em-up before it reminds itself of its pacifist motivation and resorts to art house something-or-other. The technical term for The Thin Red Line is 'a mess' and that is putting it charitably. In another review I warned of the incessant, remorseless wall-to-wall sentimental soundtrack which does its very best to manipulate the feelings and thus the judgment of the viewer, and that warning applies to this film, too. I can best describe the soundtrack as chocolate box church music meets Joe Schmaltz and his Touchy-Feely All-Stars. And that description, too, is somewhat charitable, and for a film of this length - 163 minutes - I suspect the soundtrack composer was paid by the hour.
I must confess that I was well on the point of throwing in the towel after about 20 minutes. Someone once said of Richard Wagner that after hearing his music for half an hour, you look at your watch and realise only five minutes have passed. Malik seems to share that same affliction in The Thin Red Line. But I took into account the director's current reputation and decided to stick it out. I could, I told myself, be missing something and Malik deserved an honest hearing. As it turned out, I wasn't and he didn't.
I was stumped right from the off by a rather long shot of an alligator/crocodile entering a river and slowly sinking beneath the water. Significant or not? Well, to be honest, I don't know, although as that, or another, alligator/croc turns up in the film for no particularly good reason several hours later, tied to a plank in the back of a truck and surrounded by battle-weary troops on an R&R break, the odds are surely on 'significant'. But don't ask me how or in what way.
There followed quite a long digression (it, too, seemed longer than it probably was) of two squaddies relaxing with and relating to a village of South Sea islanders - paddling in the sea, being friendly with the locals, poetically musing on nature, you know, that kind of thing - before the navy show up and we realise the two have gone AWOL. Once interned to the ship's hold, it is then we are led to believe that the film will finally get going. And it does in a kind of way, but, well, not really. One young farm lad confesses to the sergeant that he's scared, another steals a pistol, a third reveals that he was once an officer but was busted to private - Malik is almost in danger of becoming conventional but confirmed cineastes will know full well there's no danger of that. So on it goes.
At one point Nick Nolte does a 'is this man mad or just really, really committed' act, but the film isn't about that, either. Gorgeous George Clooney even puts in an appearance as the captain replacing the 'good man' unjustly sent home in disgrace, but after earning his million or two salary for the very brief guest spot, he, too, disappears.
What were you trying to do, Mr Malik? Tell us, because I sure as hell don't know. Were you honestly trying to inform us that 'war is bad'? Are you really still not convinced we don't know that? And what was with all the, to my ears insufferably trite, cod 'deep' insights intoned every ten minutes or so in voice-over? Here are three random examples: 'War doesn't ennoble men, it poisons the soul'; 'Love? Where does it come from?'; and 'What's keeping us from reaching out and touching the glory?' That last is especially vacuous. There are well-directed action war sequences which would not disgrace any steak and potatoes action film, but after all the cod philosophising and insights it should seem obvious that Malik is not in the least bit interested in that kind of cinematic titillation. If anyone reading this wants to hear at first hand just how nasty and dehumanising war is, forgot about watching a confused and confusing Malik opus and simply ask your grandfather, father, uncle or brother.
For this viewer at least Malik's The Thin Red Line is not just not a masterpiece, it is dangerously close to being an insulting piece of self-indulgence. Malik has a duty to provide us with, at least, the means and context to try to understand what he is attempting to do. If he has made and is presenting a more complex piece than Son Of Rambo Rides Again: The Dinosaurs, Malik is most entitled to expect the viewer to engage his or her intelligence and make something of an effort. But that simply isn't the case with this film. It is simply a mish-mash of sentiment, middle-brow insight, would-be stunning imagery, syrupy music and stock war movie characters, all somehow cemented together with lashings of liberal fellow feeling. And that does not make it a great or even good film. To put it mildly.