THE THIN RED LINE is poetic, thoughtful and yet a typically tough end of the century war film. Reclusive genius writer director Terrence (Days of Heaven) Malick’s first movie in 20 years follows a battalion of G.I.’s landing on Japanese held Guadalcanal in the Pacific in 1942-43, winning several horrendous battles with heavy casualties before shipping out. The familiar motif is “War is hell,” and the issue is “What did it all mean?”
The nearly three hour movie focuses on daylight frontal assaults on grassy hills dominated at the crest by stubborn Japanese machine guns. The action is brutally real, comparable to the famous Omaha Beach sequence in Saving Private Ryan. The camera seems to float up the hills beside and behind the troops, and the anguished aftermath is varied rage and compassion for living enemy soldiers.
A score of characters survive the translation from James Jones’s novel, chiefly the gentle, brave nonconformist Pvt. Witt (luminous Jim Caviezel in the role every actor in Hollywood wanted), who argues the mysteries of good/evil and immortality with the valorous but cynical Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn) throughout the battle.
Drawling Kentuckian Witt is a natural philosopher of hope who (despite the horror) is struck by the beauty of nature and the innocence of the islanders, constantly explored by Malick’s cameras.
Witt has questions but ultimately believes in a better world beyond this one. Welsh believes only in the here and now. Like most movies that speculate about life’s meaning, God is silent. Despite some ambiguity, despair seems to win.
Ben Chaplin is riveting as a soldier obsessed (and supported) by memories of his wife. Another key figure is “regular army” Col. Tall (Oscar-level work by Nick Nolte), one of a long line of military madmen in movies. He drives the men up the hill without rest or water, at least partly to serve his own ambition. His dogged foe (played with understandable disbelief by Elias Koteas) is a captain, a lawyer in civilian life, who flat out refuses to lead his men (his symbolic sons) to certain death.
Although famous names (John Travolta, George Clooney, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack) have fine cameo moments, Red Line is notable less for actors than for images (fast-tracking violence and haunted faces mostly, but also trees, animals, sun) and contemplation “This great evil, what seed, what root did it come from? Does it help the grass to grow and the sun to shine? Does its darkness grow in me, too?” Dark, lovely, unique war film but not quite satisfying worth seeing for thoughtful adults.
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