Review of The Thin Red Line (1998) by Brandon H — 15 Jul 2011

I'll put it to you straight-- it's hard to like "The Thin Red Line." You have to be in the right state of mind, let your guard down, and quiet that little voice in your head that starts groaning at the first hint of pretentiousness.

Terrence Malick, the director, is a curious filmmaker. He's been around for several decades and has a serious cult following, yet he has only made a small handful of films. Here is the short list: Badlands, Days of Heaven, The Thin Red Line, The New World, and The Tree of Life. "Badlands," made in 1973, is understated and beautifully shot. "Days of Heaven" has high critical marks, but I haven't yet seen it. "The New World" is on my list of top fifty greatest films of all time. And "The Tree of Life," his latest, is getting rave reviews across the country; I'll be racing to theaters as soon as it comes within 30 miles of me.

Some say his problem is lack of clear plot. Some say it's his slow pace. Some say he's too focused on idle cinematography, that he overuses voiceover, that he wanders too much in the character's minds and leaves too much of the action out of the story. Well "The Thin Red Line" probably falls victim to all of those accusations. No reasonable person could refute that. My beef I have with his critics, though, stems from the fact that character-based filmmaking seems to be losing its place in the mainstream. It might have already, I'm not sure. So I have to celebrate a man who ignores the pressure from big studios, or even from the paying public, to make a brain-dead, action-driven film like "Thor," "Avatar," or "Iron Man 2.".

So Malick, in my opinion, is an artist. A flawed artist, yes, but an artist, and there are so few of them left in Hollywood who can garner the star power of John Travolta, George Clooney, Adrien Brody, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack, John C. Reilly, and Woody Harrelson. Yes, all of those men are in "The Thin Red Line." A bit much, you say? Check out "The Thin Red Line" on Wikipedia. Believe it or not, in the original 5 hour cut (the final version is almost 3 hours), actors like Mickey Rourke, Martin Sheen, and Billy Bob Thorton were also heavily involved.

The film, as it stands, is indeed a bit too painfully over-narrated and slow-paced to be enjoyed by most. There are tense, involving war scenes that are smartly filmed. But the character voiceover is vague, redundant, uncompelling, and yes, slightly pretentious. The idleness is, well, a drag. I believe even the most patient and sophisticated viewers would tire during "The Thin Red Line" because we're all human; at the end of it, we all want to get down to some of the juicy bits. There just aren't many juicy bits in this film. The opportunity to characterize deeply is there, but as Roger Ebert has said about this movie, nobody gets enough screen time to really tell his story.

See the film because of the excellent cinematography (John Toll), complementary horrifying music (Hans Zimmer), and some great acting from Sean Penn, John Cusack, John Travolta and others. It's an experience. Watch it on a big TV, loud, and get ready to settle in for awhile. It feels every minute as long as it is.