A Warning

Rating: 10/10 (13 January 1999)

If you think this is going to be "Saving Private Ryan" on Guadalcanal, do yourself a favor and wait for it on video. At the very least, do the rest of us a favor and refrain from comparing it to "Ryan" on this board. Spielberg and Malick are vastly different directors; Spielberg's movies are able to capture the America's collective consciousness (the Public to a large degree) and thus easily enjoy critical and commercial success. Malick is anything but a commercial director. He possesses artistic and creative abilities that Spielberg does not (or chooses not use) and we, the audience, see this demonstrated in "Thin Red Line". The morality of war is ambiguous in "Line", the lines between good and evil are blurred, and "the mission" is not "a man." In short, "Line" is a very complicated movie in the sense that is not a clear cut war movie of the sort that have been produced by the Hollywood machine and that is part of what makes it so wonderful. The characters are extremely developed and unique people, but realize that to understand them one must see them through james jones' (the author) lens in the context of how they interact with the war, the battles, and each other. This lens may have been somewhat blurred by Malick in the sense that we are not exposed to all of the character's feelings, emotions, and dialogue (indeed in a film this would be impossible), but Malick's overall interpretation, vision, and artistic translation of the book into a movie, if understood, can compensate for this. A brilliant director made a brilliant film that does not go looking for everyone to understand it, or even enjoy it, but, with luck, when you see it maybe you will understand something of Jone's message...And Malick's.