Perfection

This movie explores the deep gut feelings that soldiers have before, during and after combat. It doesn’t do propaganda...it’s about exploring the human soul and how it is mangled...much like the human body by the effects of war.

I thought Malick made a superb choice in casting Jim Caviezel in the role of the harmony seeking Private Witt. The latter repaid Malick by putting in a career defining performance.

Yeah this movie perfectly encapsulates the inner turmoil that soldiers who are about to or have experienced combat go through. Forget flag waving, victory parades and bond buying drives. Those would have been an afterthought for most of those guys....the majority carried other memories to the day they died. The memories of friends dying next to them because they pulled the pin on a grenade before throwing the grenade, or the bitter sweet memories of sharing one last r&r with guys from their platoon before going home and probably never seeing them again.

No wonder this movie got no Oscars and SPR got like 5. It tells the truth about war.

I am with you. I have watched this film over and over again and can continue to do so.

For one thing, it portrays almost all of the different sorts of people that find themselves within the military - the ass-kissing glory hound, the coward, the brave, the whimsical almost sage-like person, the realist, and of course, the crazy. On top of this, anyone that has been in the military KNOWS each one of the different character types portrayed in this movie (I knew a "Witt" in the military, just as the other different character types).

I also find how many people have no clue what the title means and completely miss the theme of duality all through the film. Not only that, it is almost amusing when people try to compare this film to Saving Private Ryan - though they share the same subject matter (WWII) that is where it ends.

Yes, Ryan has such a dramatic start that had never been filmed before, but comparing these two movies is like comparing apples and oranges - both also have different goals and methods of getting to the end.

I saw both in the theaters and while Ryan grabbed me by the collar and shook the hell out of me, The Thin Red Line went deeper and made me think and ponder more.

To be fair, I don’t think TTRL is a very realistic war movie. It doesn’t embody the horrors of war in the way that the James Jones novel does. But it doesn’t need to, it is a very spiritual movie about the never-ending destructive and creative life force of the universe. It is very optimistic in a way.

I recognized it immediately as a masterpiece first time I watched it. One of Malick’s finest. Not sure if it is better than Days of Heaven, but that’s a VERY tough film to top. Call it a tie, both are masterpieces.