I waited all my life for this!

Rating: 10/10 (23 April 2013)

****SPOILERS*** "Thin Red Line" ranks right up there with "All Quite on the Western Front" and "Paltoon" as one of the finest war or better anti-war movies ever made. It centers around the angelic looking as well as acting Pvt. Witt, Jim Cavlezel, who's given a chance to redeem himself after being AWOL a number of times form his unit by his good friend and company 1st Sgt. Edward Welsh, Sean Penn, who assigns him to a disciplinary unit as a non combat stretcher bearer. Sent to hit the beaches at Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands Witt soon realizes that he can help his fellow GI's, members of the 25th US Army infantry division, more in fighting alongside them then carrying their bodies, dead and wounded, back behind the battle line.
Lead by Let. Col Gordon Tell, Nick Nolte, the troops are to relieve the exhausted battered and blooded US Marines in securing Henderson Field on the island that the Japs are determine to capture and hold on to. Let.Col Tell who's been passed up a number of times for general feels that this, the battle for Henderson Field, will finally get him the general's star that he sought for so long. Even if every man under his command end up getting killed and wounded in him getting it. The one problem that Let. Col Tell has on scudding his dreams of combat glory is one of his front-line officers Captain Staros, Elias Koteas, who's far more interested in the safety of the man under his command then any promotion he can get by getting them killed. Which is exactly what Let. Col Tell plans to do in having them take the vitally important hill 210 in a frontal assault not flanking movement, which will cost far less losses, that Captain Staros insists upon.
The film has one of the longest sustained battle scenes, well over 30 minutes, of any war movie that I can think of that puts you right into the thick of the fighting between the GI's and their Japanese Marine opponents. Were shown in the give no quarters fighting how war dehumanized both sides with the what you would expect the good guys Army GI's almost as brutal and barbaric as the Japs in how they treat the surrendered and wounded Japanese soldiers in their custody. Not that the Japanese were any better towards the US Marines & GI's that they captured in the fighting either.
***SPOILERS*** It's late in the movie that Pvt. Witt's Humanity comes to the surface in him voluntarily taking the lead or point on a dangerous mission deep behind the Japanese lines in order to, if and when the time comes, have the men with him survive at his own expense. It showed to everyone in his company including his good friend. 1st. Sgt Welsh just how courageous Pvt. Witt really was, in spite of his record of AWOL's, in him saving lives not taking them. There an actor in the movie who get's a Dear John letter from his girlfriend back home who for a while I thought was Joaquin Phoenix but, until I read the ending credits, isn't. the guy looked so much like Phoenix that he could have well been his long lost identical twin brother!