Maybe one of the most beautiful and deeply philosophical war movies ever.

Rating: 10/10 (14 May 2001)

"The Thin Red Line" is a philosophical look at the horrors of war. It revolves around the men of Charlie Company who are assaulting the island of Guadalcanal in the South Pacific. Although it could be argued that the title "The Thin Red Line" refers to the front line of war, I find it easier to believe that it refers to the line between sanity and insanity, as Jim Caviezel (Pvt. Witt) has pointed out in an interview.
A quick overview of my opinions on this movie: I consider it to be in the Top 10 movies of all time, for my money at least. It is a deeply philosophical movie, depicting both the horrors of war and the beauty of life. It has the ability to mesmerize you with the splendor of nature, and in the same instant disgust you with the terrors of man. This movie gives you a deeply personal look inside the minds of the soldiers and we feel as one with them as we walk the thin red line. I hope to attempt to analyze all aspects of the movie that I can in a relatively short piece.
Lets start by meeting some of the main characters of Charlie Company. We have Pvt. Witt, Sgt. Welsh, Cpt. Staros, Pvt. Bell, Pvt. Doll, and Col. Tall. These are just some of the men we meet in the movie, but I am focusing on them because we get a deep look inside their experience with Guadalcanal.
Each man seems to have his own way to escape the war: Pvt. Witt literally escapes to a Melanesian Island when he goes AWOL, and finds the love of family and the serenity of true peace there. Pvt. Bell escapes with the memory of his wife, with her love. Cpt. Staros escapes the horrors of the war through his love for his men, which he considers to be his sons. Pvt. Doll, who seems to almost be our narrator, escapes into his own mind, as he poetically looks at the good and evil of the war and tries to resolve it deep inside himself. Col. Tall escapes by focusing on his career and all that his family and his men have sacrificed at his orders.
The audio and the visual aspects of this movie are absolutely stunning. The colors are vibrant and sharp, the music soft and melodic. During the battles the skies are bright blues, the grass is green, the sun seems to melt across the landscape like a warm wave. However, the soldiers, their gear, and everything unnatural and part of the war is in muted browns and blacks, no color their. Almost as if these monochromatic men were nothing more than chess pieces, and they obviously do not belong on this beautiful board. We also noticed that the Japanese soldiers, too, have no color to them. They appear almost no differently than the American soldiers.
The musical soundtrack to this movie reflects this as well. It is almost as if the music is the exact opposite of the scene: during a tense, horrific battle we hear the soft, beautiful melodies of strings serenading us in the background. The beautiful music carries a lilting, mournful tone, as if to both decry and mourn the horror that is going on around it. The stark contrast between the beauty of the music and scenery and the ugliness of the war leave us feeling even more disjointed and askew with reality.
As we proceed through the film, we are put in the position of an anonymous soldier who is along with the rest of the men. The camera tracks low on the grass as we crawl, jumps erratically as we run, and pauses to look at the sunlight filtering through the canopy in a rare, unguarded moment of beauty. We feel one with the men and are treated to a rare look at their deepest, darkest and innermost thoughts.
As they wrestle with the philosophical and moral issues of what they are doing, we hear it all. We are there when they realize with horror that they are no different than the men they kill. We are there when they come to the understanding that with a roll of the dice it could have been them dead on the ground or beginning for mercy. We learn through their eyes that there are no winners in the war, that everyone is a victim.
As each of the men try to escape these horrors in their own way, we see that all of the escapes revolve around love: for Staros, it is the love of his men. For Witt it is the love of that other world he once saw. For Bell, the love of his wife. For Welsh, though, it is the love of the hope that Witt carries within him. Welsh himself has been too jaded with the war to feel the same things that Witt feels, so instead he escapes vicariously through Witt, a man he almost treats as a brother.
In the end, however, we learn that the war takes all of their escapes: Witt's Melanesian family turn on him in fear, Bell's wife leaves him for an Airman. Staros is relieved of his command; Tall sacrifices the love and trust of his men for his career. Doll never seems able to resolve his moral argument going on deep inside him. And Welsh loses his escape when Witt lost his.
In the end, Welsh realizes that to survive the war each man must find something that is his own and hold on to it. This may be the closest thing to an epiphany that this movie has. We learn through him that the thin red line between sanity and insanity is razor-sharp, and it may be impossible to walk it in war without falling off.
As the survivors of Charlie Company leave Guadalcanal they are treated once more to a view of its beauty. It's as if everything they saw had been nothing more than a terrible dream to be forgotten and swallowed up in the beauty of nature around them. But each man also leaves with something buried inside them that only they and we privileged few will ever understand.
"The Thin Red Line" is a beautiful and deeply philosophical movie that pulls you in and leaves you feeling lost at the end. If you are lucky, you come out with a small understanding of the true cost of war. I highly recommend that you watch it many times.