The Thin Red Line
20th Century Fox, 1998
Directed by Terrence Malick

$$3/4

War, what is it good for? The question asked so poignantly by Motown sensation Edwin Starr in his 1970 hit single, is the same question that faces the characters in The Thin Red Line. The song tells us in three minutes that war is good for absolutely nuthin' (say it again). The movie tells us the same thing, but takes close to three hours.

Make no mistake, Terrence Malick's epic (and I do mean epic) adaptation of James Jones' novel about the battle of Guadalcanal is the well-crafted work of a skilled filmmaker (even more impressive considering Malick hasn't been behind the camera in two decades). The film is at times hypnotic, engrossing and powerful -- a contemplative journey into the heart of the bloodiest conflict the planet has ever known. But it is also at times ponderous, heavy-handed, pretentious and downright dull.

The film's first half is extraordinary. The men of "C Company" spend most of those 90 minutes trying to take a Japanese-controlled hill. Malick stages the battle with brutal ferocity. He uses lightning fast tracking shots to plunge us into the fray, dragging us along the firing line. The drama builds nicely as the pious Captain (Elias Koteas) squares off against the gruff Commanding Officer (Nick Nolte), with the former refusing orders to lead his men into an attack that would result in heavy casualties.

But once the hill is taken, the movie loses steam. The film meanders the rest of the way, and you begin to wait for the tension to rise once again toward a climax. It never does.

The Thin Red Line works best when it ruminates on war and nature. Malick gives us enough shots of trees and animals to fill an hour on the Discovery channel. He shows us a colorful bird to remind us there is beauty in nature, but he also gives us glimpses of a crocodile to remind us nature is not always so benevolent. (It's deep, man!) There is also a lot of time spent contrasting the soldiers and the primitive inhabitants of the South Pacific island. Early on a soldier remarks that the children of the tribe don't fight. Later, when a rifle carrying private passes a naked bushman, we're left to wonder which one truly belongs to an enlightened civilization.

That kind of craft is the reason to go see The Thin Red Line. Unlike that other World War II epic of 1998, Malick's film employs many of the artifices of movie making. Where Saving Private Ryan used a gritty style that resembled a documentary, The Thin Red Line revels in using sweeping crane shots, flashbacks and the juxtaposing of images. Hans Zimmer's ambient score also helps creates a very dreamlike mood (the movie could be called Apocalypse Then). But the film's strength also proves to be its weakness.

Malick gives texture by letting each of his main characters provide their own voice over narration. But while the narration lets us know what the soldiers are thinking, it doesn't help us care about them. (The cast is mostly no-name actors -- the big name stars are mostly relegated to cameos.) The troops in this movie are largely indistinguishable from one another. Maybe that's the point. But I have to wonder how it is that each of these soldiers can express their thoughts in such a poetic way -- and why it is that they all speak with Southern accents -- there had to be somebody from Brooklyn in this Platoon! The narration, in fact, so overwhelms the movie that at times it feels more like a Ken Burns documentary or a book-on-tape with pictures. It's an experience that leaves you with plenty to think about on the topic of man's inhumanity to man, but it doesn't shed much new light on what it was really like to fight the war.

(c) Copyright 1999