REVIEWS

"THE THIN RED LINE"

Terrence Malick had only directed two movies prior to "The Thin Red Line": "Days of Heaven" and "Badlands." I've seen neither of them, but from what I hear, they are both excellent, and Terrence Malick is supposedly a brilliant director. When Malick decided to make a movie about World War II (which was supposedly to be very different from the movie of the same name in 1964, despite both being based on the novel by James Jones), his name attracted many big names in Hollywood, such as Sean Penn, George Clooney, John Cusack, Woody Harrelson, Nick Nolte, John Travolta, and John Savage. None of them (with the exception of Sean Penn and Nick Nolte) had a hell of a lotta screen time, though. Most of the screen time was dedicated to lesser-known actors (like Ben Chaplin, Elias Koteas, and Adrian Brody).

Most critics love this movie. Me? I didn't get it. It's LOOKS great, but I couldn't even tell you what the movie was about. I found it to be nothing more than a 3-hour long mess. This movie was nominated for quite a few Academy Awards, including Best Picture. I don't see it. There was a lotta symbolism, but I missed most of it. Much of it was later explained to me in in-depth reviews that I read, but I guess I'm just not the film geek I thought I was, because I missed most of it.

I don't know what to tell you, dear readers. I guess it just wasn't my thing.

Scale of 1-10: 4