Pretentious, boring, political, un-real . Thirteen year olds can be easily impressed by cheap tricks, "heartfelt" lyrics, and a lot of pretty lights. So it goes with some reviewers of this movie. This movie contains the unending internal reflections of about 6 or 7 different characters. These reflections never really go anywhere, never draw substantive conclusions. Primarily, there is just a lot of whining. THe only exception is the Sean Penn character until the end, when he whines at least as much as everybody else. "War is tough" is one of the main themes of this movie. Is that really a revelation?     One thing you learn early on in acting or directing classes is to "play opposites," meaning put contrasting things in juxtaposition so that the contrast highlights both sides. An example is when a very evil character such as Richard III uses humor. "I'll have her - but not for long." THe fact that the guy is joking about killing his new bride makes him all the more evil to us. At the same time, perhaps we can't avoid laughing in spite of ourselves.    OK, so this director had some of the same classes I did, but he has to use the technique over and over and over and over and over and ... until it starts seeming boring and banal. War scene, lots of dying. Oh look, a pretty butterfly! More blood and bullets. Oh gee, the light going through that leaf is beautiful! Use this trick once or twice and maybe it seems new to the uninitiated audience. Use it more than three times and you are asking for trouble. This director must use it 10-15 times. He turns it into a cliche. When the audience can predict when they are about to see the next opposite, you have overdone it.    So what do we have so far? A bunch of whining character crying about war being bad and a bunch of contrast scenes. And really, that's pretty much it. The movie could have been cut in half with no loss because if there is one thing this movie is, It Is Redundant. It is spoon-feeding you the same message over and over and over again. Ouch, war hurts! Ew, mutilated bodies are yucky. Oh gosh, a little bird got hurt!!! We are so nasty! We must stop this war!!! (never mind the fact that thousands of little birds get eaten alive by cats every day)    The director focuses on the yucky and inconvenient aspects of war - which I suppose would be briliant, except I think almost everybody on the planet already knows that wars are yucky and inconvenient. It's almost as if the author doesn't Believe we know, that he somehow thinks we missed it. And if only he reminds us at every possible repetitive opportunity, again and again and again, well, then maybe we will "get it" and start opposing wars, I guess. Never mind about Hitler and the 6 million jews. Never mind about Pearl Harbor. War is a yucky thing done by bad men, or nice whimpy men trapped in a situation by bad men. It has no meaning and there is nothing remotely noble about it. We were just wasting our time fighting the Nazis. The Nazis were just misunderstood! If they want to cook 6 million jews in the ovens, let them do it.    An adult movie deals with realties and poses questions like, "how do I get myself to do something that I don't want to do, but that I know I should?" Making yourself do things that are not pleasant is one of the hallmarks of reaching adulthood. This movie takes a very adolescent perspective and asks, "if I whine enough, can I get out of my chores?"     The dumbest scene in this movie is when the Jim Caveziel character is surrounded by Japanese and for no reason whatsoever, will not surrender. He stands there in the middle of about 40 Japanese soldiers and decides (after looking at some pretty leaves and butterlies) to raise his weapon so they will shoot him. The funny thing is, it's completely unnecessary: his comrades have already been warned. His death accomplishes nothing but relief for the audience - he can no longer utter his inane internal monologues.     I think if you are a left-winger or have a thing for looking at the bodies of naked boys, you will love this movie. It's the kind of propaganda piece that a vacant, unquestioning mind will eat up. If your leanings are more adult, however, you may hate it. You'll wonder why the story is so one-sided, why nobody seems to believe in the causes they are fighting for, even though the Japanese did attack us, and the Germans did some naughty things too. None of that seems to matter to the storyteller.  "Why can't we all get along?" he cries, as the germans load another group of jews into the ovens and turn up the heat...    A final note: if you want to see two really good war movies that make valid criticisms of the "war spirit" and how wars are conducted, see "Gallipoli" and/or "Breaker Morant." These movies are extremely effective in making their points without using cartoonish characters. The characters are real and the plots move the story foreward.    "The Thin Red Line" is what I would call "professed brilliance." A couple of simple tricks are used to try to impress the audience. But there is no real meat here. It's just a bunch of pointless whining. The poetry is poorly written and pretentious. And the characters are not real.
Output: NEG