Listen to the critics... but as a guide to watching this brilliant and haunting film.

Rating: 10/10 (31 January 1999)

Just got back from seeing a screening of "The Thin Red Line," of which I entered with more than a modicum of fear. Fear that the movie would be just what other reviewers and friends have described it as: beautiful, but a swirling mess of inner dialogue, meandering camera work, and nearly non-existent plot. Well... it was all true. I'm glad I didn't let it scare me away from seeing it in the theater... it's definitely one of the best films of 1998, if not the best.
If you are planning on seeing this film, but are wary.. I urge you to go. Just prepare yourself by clicking your heels together three times, and chant "It's not Saving Private Ryan.. It's not Saving Private Ryan.. It's not Saving Private Ryan..." If you walk in knowing that any battle scenes will be few and far between, that this is much more of an "internal" movie than "external," and that you will be forced to see the world from a higher viewpoint.. you'll do just fine.
No.. there is no real plot to this movie. But you have to remember.. for the men who fought in the war, many felt it would go on forever. Yes... there were objectives, but every Joe knew that there wouldn't be a climatic ending like in the cliffhangers. You get your job done, and you move on, finding some way to survive and while attempting to keep some meaning in your life. Whether you do that by thinking of your girl, pondering over the nature of mankind, or going insane... everyone copes in a different way. Malick understands his objective and hits it right on the head, giving us an emotionally wrenching glance into the minds of various soldiers in different roles at Guadalcanal.
I almost am in disbelief at those who say this movie isn't "realistic." Granted, there are only a handful of dismembered corpses, but one doesn't need naked violence to prove realism. Sure, Saving Private Ryan (the new "benchmark" for battle realism) showed us the brutal physical side of war to disquiet our stomachs for conflict (and isn't that the point of that film? To frighten us from letting it happen again?). But it never gets close to the raw (and ultimately more damaging) psychological and philosophical consequences of war, where we suddenly realize our capacity for destruction, cruelty, egotism, and remorse over our actions.
Saving Private Ryan is a trip through lands we've seen and traveled through before, just in more vivid, visceral detail: Europe, damaged buildings, war, and heroics/patriotism (Spielberg may like to think the latter are muted in his movie, in an vain attempt to be more "cynical" about war... but he's kidding himself). The Thin Red Line takes us into a different world: a pristine land of innocence cut by a swath of violence, where every man is equal in the cool eyes of nature, and it is up to each individual to find their own salvation, or lack thereof.
While Saving Private Ryan is about our blood (both literally and figuratively), The Thin Red Line looks through into our souls. And that can be more humbling than any bullet.