Review of The Thin Red Line (1998) by Peter C — 07 Dec 2011

What can I say, while this movie is not for everyone, it surely is for me. If you need constant battle scenes and intense, extended action, this film is not for you. Instead, TTRL looks inside each each soldiers mind in a type of James Joyce or William Faulkner-esque stream-of-conciousness. Much of the speaking parts in the film are simply vocal representations of the soldiers' rambling minds.

The film has no firm plot, but that only enhances the feeling of disjunction and alienation felt throughout the length of the story. Instead, each actor, each soldier has his own story to tell and his own view on war. In another very Modern technique, the story comes full circle for the protagonist, Pvt. Witt. In the beginning, he states that immortality is found in calmness when facing death, which is what his dying mother experienced. In one of the final scenes, (Spoiler Alert) Witt finds himself surrounded by Japanese soldiers. In a moment of beautiful cinematography, Witt experiences an epiphany of his own mortality and in an acceptance of his own death, raises his gun provoking the Japanese soldiers to shoot and kill him.

When beginning this film, don't expect anything similar to Saving Private Ryan, a movie released around the same time. TTRL is a war movie by definition, but it is so much more.