The Thin Red Line 1998, Rated R

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Starring Nick Nolte, Jim Caviezel. Released to DVD on June 29, 1999.

Starring every male actor in southern California with the exceptions of Tom Cruise and Brian Bosworth, The Thin Red Line is director Terrence Malick's artistic and stylistic look at the Battle of Guadalacanal. Fought on the Pacific Island of Guadalacanal during the Second World War, the Battle of Guadalacanal was a particularly bloody battle, filled with a great loss of human lives as the Americans forces attacked the Japanese while under-manned. Guadalacanal did, however, mark the turning point of the Pacific portion of World War II, as the capture of said hill from the Japanese signified American air superiority for over 1,000 miles in the south Pacific.

While Malick's style of direction and script, which he adapted from James Jones' novel of the same name, are realistic and faithful to the book, they are also good examples of cinema taken to a tedious extreme. I was quite surprised to see that Malick's script was nominated for an Academy Award for the Best Adapted Screenplay, as the characters come and go with no sense pacing, and the sub-plots he chose to include quite a deterrent to the overall flow of the story.

Malick's two previous films, Badlands and Days of Heaven are regarded as nothing short of spectacular. Thus, his reemergence from a 17-year hiatus has been quite the picture of fan-fair and congratulations. I just wonder how many of the Oscar, Director's Guild, and Golden Globe nominations The Thin Red Line has received have been because the film signifies director Terrence Malick's triumphant return to Hollywood. The material on-screen is good, yes, and his well planned dolly shots were a visual treat, but, at the same time, Malick's decision to constantly cut away to shots of the island flora and fauna were annoying and off-putting.

While on-location, Malick sent camera units into the forest to look for, and shoot chirping birds, moving sloths, and sleeping bats. Occasionally, his inclusion of animals in the The Thin Red Line was interesting, reminding us that man is merely borrowing parts of the earth from Mother Nature, but with seemingly endless cut aways to the natural spectacles of the south Pacific, this was distracting to the point of perturbance.

The acting performances in this film were adequate, with Sean Penn and newcomer Jim Caveziel holding down the biggest roles in the film, but the presence of so many familiar faces in small roles in this movie was also quite distracting. The casting decision to include A-List stars like Nick Nolte, John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, and especially George Clooney, merely served to draw attention away from Malick's anti-war message and the film itself, as I began to wonder if and when the actors would return.The style and physical production of The Thin Red Line were topped only by Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryanóexcellent doesn't begin to describe itóbut I find it hard to believe that the Academy felt Malick's meandering tale was worthy of both an Oscar nomination for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Adapted Screenplay. With the constant coming and going of characters and a variety of poorly executed sub-plots, The Thin Red Line was entirely too long for its own good. This would have been a far superior production had sizeable portions of this film been cut. This film could have easily been cut to a running time of two hours, and would have been more enjoyable and profitable in the shorter form as well. I raise a skeptical eyebrow at the decision to nominate this film as Best Picture.