DIRECTOR:
Samuel Fuller
CAST:
Lee Marvin, Robert Carradine, Mark Hamill, Bobby Di Cicco, Kelly Ward, Siegfried Rauch and Perry Lang.
REVIEW:
Let me start off by saying that this review is of the Reconstructed Version of the film released in 2004, not the original, 2-hour piece from 1980. Unlike most fans, I’m not a big advocate of this new version; I much prefer the original, and find many portions of the “new” version difficult to tolerate.
“The Big Red One” tells a simple story: in 1942, a grizzled Army Sergeant and his rifle squad land on the beaches of North Africa. The film will follow him and four infantrymen as they fight across North Africa, the Mediterranean and Western Europe, right up until the eventual German surrender in 1945.
I like Sam Fuller’s war movies. Most of them are B-movies from the 50s and 60s, all of which pack a certain emotional punch and have a jagged edge and emotional realism that is largely absent from the slew of other war pictures produced at the time. All of Fuller’s tales focus on small groups of infantrymen fighting on the front lines, and the various stresses they endure. “The Big Red One” is no different. There is no forced jingoism here; the movie is about five men who slog their way through battlefield after battlefield. Their only goal is survival. Nothing else matters.
The strong point of “The Big Red One” is that it always feels genuine. Fuller was a soldier – this film is largely autobiographical – and every little detail is right. We see things here that we don’t see in other war movies. For example, soldiers put condoms over the barrels of the rifles to keep them from taking in water. This happened all of the time during the war; how often did we see it in WWII films before “Saving Private Ryan” rolled around 18 years later? Every bit of dialog between the soldiers sounds like it belongs there. People act and talk like soldiers do. The script feels genuine, authentic and fresh.
At least in the original film. The new material, well, that’s another story. Many of the scenes involving women (particularly in a castle, near the film’s conclusion) come across as forced and distorted. The dialog never rings true and the cast sound as though they are reading from cue cards. While I am criticizing the new material, let me also say that it’s obvious to me why some of these scenes never made it into the final cut. One sequence, in which a band of French horsemen attack a fortified German position, contains no dialog and just does not feel as though it belongs in the piece. It fails to develop characters and just slows the pace down incredibly. There are lots of other new additions that seem pointless! Fuller has his little quirks, and this was his dream film – but it seems as though a lot of quirky material was thrown in just for the sake of being quirky! In the original film, the past was always fast and each sequence stood on its own. There were connecting themes and threads, yes, but nothing too bizarre took away from the realism. This new cut seems surreal and loses a lot of the realism that was packed in the original version.
On the plus side, this longer cut is, at times, more graphic in its portrayal of combat. We see more blood, guts and limbs in this version. People swear and talk dirty a lot more. These scenes definitely add to the grittiness of the film. I wish they had been included in the original version.
As it exists now, you will either love or hate “The Big Red One”. I found the Reconstructed Version to be unbalanced and frustratingly slow-paced. I can’t watch it over and over again like I could the original version. All of the sentiments and impact of the original cut are lost in a sea of aimless new footage which simply detracts from Fuller’s message: The real glory of war is surviving. Nothing else matters. In the original film, you got this point in every scene. It could not be missed. Here, with so many in-jokes and meandering scenes going on, it’s hard to tell what Fuller is trying to accomplish – let alone take the film seriously. I even fell asleep during my second viewing. That’s how bad of an experience it was.
SGT SLAUGHTER’S RATING:
Reconstruction
2 Bullets
Original
5 Bullets
