As a war movie, The Thin Red Line stands tall as one of the best in recent memory. The battle scenes are tense, taunt and disturbing. Powerful performances by Nick Nolte (who really shines in this) and several others make the fight for the hill all the more strongly riveting. For those of you that don’t know, the movie follows “C” for Charlie Company during a vicious campaign on Guadalcanal during WWII in the Pacific. The movie also follows story threads of several of the characters in the film, followed by poetic, haunting imagery of home and often strange mind altering voice-overs. But we’ll get to more of that later. As I said above, the ‘WAR’ part of this film is amazing. Just as in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ (And I’m not going to do a comparison here between the two, in my mind there is no comparison between the two.) you really feel a part of the action, each and every death is felt down deep in the pit of your stomach.

      Nick Nolte, who should get a best supporting actor nomination for this, is a man caught up in the fact of war. Passed over for promotion, this is his first opportunity at war during a 15 year service and he intends to make the most out of it, even at the sacrifice of his men. Nolte is a bull, an un-stoppable force of nature. I want to know more about his character, learn about the fire that burned in his belly. But the movie is full of characters. And that is what kills the rest of the film.

      I’m not sure of the exact minutes, but this is a long film. (Well over three hours!) And it suffers for it. During the last half-hour many audience members were disappointed when ‘fades’ didn’t lead to credits and the movie continued on, and on, and on. The movie is full of esoteric, half-fragments of Vietnam like memories, poetic Discovery channel photography and long, rambling whispery voice overs that sound more like Freud, than the common GI. It almost works. But the connection is not there. The emotional connection to the characters, beyond mortal danger into a deeper understanding that makes us feel for these guys. When the fighting stopped, so did the connection.

      Personally, The Thin Red Line is good FILM. But it’s far from being a great MOVIE. If you enjoyed “Full Metal Jacket” you’ll like this movie. But it’s not another “Saving Private Ryan” caliber war movie. This is a different vision, something that I always support. But it has to work. And, for me, this movie left me half-full, when I should’ve been spilling over.

Bryan Ward, 1999