| Try Cornel Wilde's Beach Red Instead |
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| written by etaviotal |
August 1, 2009 - 9:48 PM PDT |
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0 out of 3 members found this review helpful
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| In 1967 Cornel Wilde did basically what The Thin Red Line sets out to do and, in my opinion, did a much better job. |
| Not Saving Private Ryan |
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| written by johelinedvd |
April 30, 2002 - 10:20 AM PDT |
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14 out of 14 members found this review helpful
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Sean Penn delivers another brilliant and subtle performance as a sergeant just trying to do his job. Jim Caviezel anchors strong supporting performances all around. Nick Nolte is exceptionally powerful as a colonel battling personal and professional demons while also leading the assault.
This movie is mainly driven by internal monologues, surprisingly heart-felt flashbacks, and soft conversations, much more than battle sequences or plot points. Given it's running time, if you expecting an all-out action-war movie, this could prove to be a very long experience.
(one complaint is that the star studded cast tends to be distracting at times, leading you to go, Hey that's WHAT'S HIS NAME?, too often and disrupting the flow.)
Tall, green, windswept grass, bending and swaying in a dance. Idyllic. Pastoral. A place you would very much like to spend your quiet moments of a lazy dream-filled vacation. Too bad there is a war going on. A lush, beautifully shot film that juxtaposes the horror of war against magnificent natural beauty. A hypnotic, contemplative film that constantly balances the heroism of the combatants with their near paralyzing fear. Silent breezy calm interrupted by the intense bombardment of artillery. Quiet reflections on home, love, and a more peaceful place in face of the roaring intensity of battle.
The film accomplishes an extraordinary feat by presenting these almost contradicting images to reveal the conflicts of war, and more importantly, the conflicts of the men caught in war, their personal fears, strengths, and faults, and also the conflicts amongst the men driving the war along. The film's greatest accomplishment is to humanize war, that is, presenting war, not as a sentimental, glamorized, or romantic event, but rather as a gritty reality of men pitted against men, and men battling against themselves, and showing the personal cost of heroism. |
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