The Thin Red Line (1998)

Went to the Orioles vs. Yankees game yesterday with dad, during which he made the recommendation to watch this on the instant stream of Netflix.  I've seen it before but it was quite a while back, near when it came out, and at the age of 10 I can't say my movie appreciation had matured to the adequate level.  And yes, my parents did let me watch R movies when I was 10, something I appreciate today and I think greatly helped develop my love for movies.  So yeah, its 2011 now and I'm pretty sure I'll like it more.

After 20 years Terrance Malick returns with the Thin Red Line.  A star-studded film that explores the prism of human emotion of Charlie company on their slow crawl across Guadacanal Island during WWII.

43/50 Eggs

The Thin Red Line is filled with famous actors, either at the beginning of their career or in the midst.  War films tend to be somewhat synonymous with this, such as Saving Private Ryan, but this one goes above and beyond.  It would seem that once Terrance Malick announced he was making another movie everyone jumped in line.  For those reading this and don't know who he is , shame on you, go to imdb, and watch some of his movies.  Because of this the casting is incredible.  Often times in movies there are occasional one-line actors that are obviously not up to par and the film suffers because of it, this doesn't happen here.  Malick's ability to expose the emotions of the soldiers is compelling. This was well executed through great direction and the wonderful narration monologues. One cannot go without also noting the score.  Why it didn't when the Oscar I don't understand.

I do, however, feel that telling a story about WWII in the Pacific is hard.  It was such a slow deadly attack that to do it justice and stay true to the storyline the film can come across drawn out and boring.  Malick also went a hair outside of Hollywood and therefore the film has an independent feel that some may consider less entertaining.  Please don't see this as a negative in my eyes, but to achieve a 50/50 a movie has to be fully entertaining as well as providing full exploration of human emotion.  To do both in the same movie, can be quite difficult.