it has been 20 years since a terrence malick film hit theaters .
his new film , the thin red line , is a strange , beautiful , enigmatic mess of a movie .
the first thing that jumps out to one when they see the advertisements for this film is the huge cast .
it is filled with above - the - title stars .
the cast , for the most part , gives great performances .
john travolta , whose role is nothing more than a cameo , seems not to have attacked his performance with that much verve .
george clooney , whose role became a cameo in editing , gives a strange performance .
one wonders if he knew that his performance would become the object of ridicule through a character 's narration .
the rest of the cast , especially nick nolte and elias koteas , are unambiguously fantastic .
these actors ( and they are , with two exceptions , men ) were lured by the name of malick .
terrence malick is a cinematic legend .
he has often been called " the j .
d .
salinger of cinema .
"
his two previous films , badlands and days of heaven , are spectacularly beautiful and obscure motion pictures .
after he made them , he disappeared for 20 years .
this film marks his return .
what he 's made with the thin red line is a film that seems less concerned with plot than with the emotion of the moment .
the narration which fills the film ( and perplexes many ) not only lets us hear the narrators ( the characters themselves ) pontificate , but also lets us hear such of - the - moment thoughts as " i 'm scared .
"
the rather simple plot of the thin red line is used as a canvas on which many stories are painted .
the plot couldly simply be boiled down to an assault on a hill .
a plot synopsis for the thin red line is difficult , because the story is fractured .
many stories are here , from the clash between the lieutenant ( elias koteas ) and the savage colonel ( a voracious nick nolte ) to the private ( ben chaplin ) who uses his love for the woman he left behind to keep him going .
the fracturing of the story is ultimately a fault .
it is as if an artist spent an incredible amount of time artfully sculpting tiny statues and then threw them into a box , shook the box , and poured the results onto a table .
this basically creates a mess , but the stories can be discerned and enjoyed .
i 'm not declaring that the film has no structure .
while saving private ryan used warfare to bookend the plot , malick uses reflection and glorious shots of nature to bookend about 90 minutes of combat .
the battles in the thin red line are astonishing and display a mastery of filmmaking . the astounding cinematography in this film must also be given notice .
this film uses color and light in such a fantastic way , that it will be sad to see it degraded when it has to bee transferred to video .
ultimately , malick has crafted a film that is a movie that enjoys looking through the treetops more than regarding the war that rages below them .
the film is filled with nature photography and the regarding of nature .
while some have said that the anti - war message and pro - nature tubthumping was juvenile , it was done with so much complexity and thought , that it can not ever honestly be called childish .
after seeing the thin red line , i was haunted by it and am quite ready to see it again .
i was haunted by it and am quite ready to see it again are astonishing and display a mastery of filmmaking the astounding cinematography in this film must also be given notice are unambiguously fantastic gives great performances it can not ever honestly be called childish in such a fantastic way