Critic Reviews
Thin Red Line, The (1998) Rank 5 Reviews
Expert Review Summary
based on (112) reviews
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IMDB.com
The film takes place around the fight for Guadalcanal during World War II and focuses on a group of men in C Company. Rather than being a collection of increasingly brutal war scenes, however, The Thin Red Line is more of a character study as we follow ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
New York Daily News (Elizabeth Weitzman)
Here is something great and startling -- not necessarily the kind of comforting, consensus-creating film that wins Oscars, but unquestionably a movie that will live in the history of the medium. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at New York Daily News (Elizabeth Weitzman)
San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Unique and courageous. It may be counted as one of the year's few steps forward in cinema. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Deep Focus (Bryant Frazer)
The Thin Red Line may not be sui generis, but it is more or less without precedent in recent history. The obvious reference point is 1979's Apocalypse Now, which shares The Thin Red Line 's distended narrative style as well as Malick's penchant for ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Deep Focus (Bryant Frazer)
IMDB.com
Perhaps the big turnoff for many was this film's unconventionality. I'd be hardpressed to compare it to any other film that I've seen it is very, very artsy, incredibly slow and amazingly, it works beautifully.On my second viewing, I realized that the ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Jack Garner)
The Thin Red Lineopens on a palm-laced island, where natives perform ritual dances and carefree children swim amid the coral. All is tranquil.Gradually, we notice that one of the men is not a native. He's white. And soon we understand ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Rochester Democrat and Chronicle (Jack Garner)
Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis)
Malick's film is as technically well-assembled as one could ask, and the exquisite photography is
unmatched even by Toll's similarly epic-scale work on Mel Gibson's Braveheart. In the end, however,
it is not The Thin Red Line's ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Nick's Flick Picks (Nick Davis)
San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Detroit News (Susan Stark)
Film Quips Online (John R. McEwen)
The absence of a central figure or definite plot line may be this film's only weakness. Though it is an intentional device designed to convey the tedium and random nature of the subject, it sometimes causes a sense of stalling or a lack of focus, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film Quips Online (John R. McEwen)
IMDB.com
To state that _The_Thin_Red_Line_ centers on a group of American soldiers fighting for survival in the Guadalcanal conflict of World War II is to say everything and nothing about the film. A number of violent combat scenes occupy most of the film's ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
There are a lot of critics (many of them friends of mine) complaining about The Thin Red Line. Terrence Malick’s first film in 20 years, an adaptation of James Jones’ 1962 autobiographical novel of World War 2, is anything but a crowd-pleaser. Even ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
San Francisco Chronicle (Mick LaSalle)
Looking Closer (Jeffrey Overstreet)
There are a lot of critics (many of them friends of mine) complaining about The Thin Red Line. Terrence Malick’s first film in 20 years, an adaptation of James Jones’ 1962 autobiographical novel of World War 2, is anything but a crowd-pleaser. Even ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Looking Closer (Jeffrey Overstreet)
IMDB.com
Divided into three distinct acts, the movie unfolds itself as we chronicle several weeks in the lives of a group of American soldiers during World War II. Through the incredible hardships they are forced to endure, they grow from strangers to friends, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
TV Guide's Movie Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
An intensely internalized portrait of external pandemonium, a slippery, insidiously haunting work of poetry! ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at TV Guide's Movie Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
filmsgraded.com (Brian Koller)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
In many ways it seems like a discourse on philosophy given by a company of infantrymen in Guadalcanal. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
In many ways it seems like a discourse on philosophy given by a company of infantrymen in Guadalcanal. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Ozus' World Movie Reviews (Dennis Schwartz)
World Socialist Web Site (David Walsh)
World Socialist Web Site (David Walsh)
MovieMaze (Daniel Bund)
Mr. Showbiz (Richard T. Jameson)
It's the awesome, metaphysically charged spectacle of man doing terrible things to man within the multicolored and multifarious cathedral of Nature. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Mr. Showbiz (Richard T. Jameson)
Film.com (John Hartl)
Could be called the "Red Badge of Courage" of World War II movies. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film.com (John Hartl)
Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
The disturbing ideas it plants in the soil of the soul need time and darkness ? not light ? to germinate. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
Village Voice (J. Hoberman)
As mystical as it is gritty, as despairing as it is detached. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Village Voice (J. Hoberman)
The Onion (A.V. Club) (Scott Tobias)
Malick's powerful intermingling of brutality and beauty, his signature cutaways to indigenous flora and fauna, and the gentle lyricism of his disjunctive narration and painterly images are too rich to fully register in a single viewing. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at The Onion (A.V. Club) (Scott Tobias)
The UK Critic (Ian Waldron-Mantgani)
Of course, Terrence Malick is obviously still a genius on the set. He still knows how to film a classic picture, if not how to truly finish one. If the rumours are true, though, and he was making grand structural changes to "The Thin Red Line" even past ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at The UK Critic (Ian Waldron-Mantgani)
TV Guide Entertainment Network, Movie Guide
Call it the anti- Saving Private Ryan : Terrence Malick's graceful, chaotic adaptation of James Jones' 1962 novel about the bloody, attenuated campaign to take Guadalcanal Island in 1942-43 (he also wrote From Here to Eternity ), is an intensely ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at TV Guide Entertainment Network, Movie Guide
Movie Hell (Michael J. Legeros)
THE THIN RED LINE is a little like opera-you don't have to understand it to enjoy it. Confusing, confounding, abstract, and impressionistic, last year's *other* big war movie still contains some of the most striking imagery in years (decades?). Adapting ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Movie Hell (Michael J. Legeros)
IMDB.com
'The Thin Red Line' marks the return of director Terrence Malick, whose last film, in 1978, entitled 'Days of Heaven', earned an Oscar for cinematography, and Malick knows how to visualize his films in an almost flawless fashion as he plunges his camera ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
The movie is about the effort to drive the Japanese out of Guadalcanal in World War II. It's an ensemble piece with a variety of characters, each dealing with the horrors of war in his own way. There's no clear protagonist or linear plot development, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
And so begins the hardest critique I'll probably ever have to write. So many movies I see leave me with instant thoughts and criticism(s), while others linger in my head days, even weeks before I can finally sit down, organize them intelligently, and ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Palo Alto Online (Susan Tavernetti)
Here's the litmus test. If you absolutely loved Steven Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan" because of its characters and engrossing story, you will probably hate Terrence Malick's World War II combat movie. But using Spielberg's extraordinary film as the ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Palo Alto Online (Susan Tavernetti)
Movie Reviews UK
Welcome to today's lesson: a work of art isn't profound just because it confuses, somehow eluding your intellectual grasp. If anything the opposite is true, which is that communication must be established between an artist and their audience. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Movie Reviews UK
IMDB.com
Having never seen Malick's previous films, I was not quite sure what to expect from a Malick movie. Thankfully, I was not disappointed. While missing some of the interesting camera techniques Spielberg exploited well in Ryan, Malick takes things at a ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
Majestically lyrical and maddeningly introverted, Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line is a one-of-a-kind movie experience. Of all the things this mysterious writer-director may have accomplished during his 20-year absence from filmmaking, none of them ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
IMDB.com
Writer/director Terrence Malick, known as the J.D. Salinger of the movies, is the nearmythic Harvard graduate, Rhodes Scholar, former journalist and philosophy professor who has exiled himself from Hollywood's film industry for nearly two decades after ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Netflix (James Rocchi)
Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)
Slate (David Edelstein)
No movie in the last decade has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful, rambling war epic The Thin Red Line. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Slate (David Edelstein)
TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
An intensely internalized portrait of external pandemonium, a slippery, insidiously haunting work of poetry rather than brilliantly realized pulp. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at TV Guide (Maitland McDonagh)
Variety (Todd McCarthy)
Like a Rousseau painting splattered with carnage of warfare. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Variety (Todd McCarthy)
Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)
This may have its occasional dull stretches, but in contrast to "Saving Private Ryan" it's the work of a grown-up with something to say about the meaning and consequences of war. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Chicago Reader (Jonathan Rosenbaum)
Newsweek (David Ansen)
Juxtaposes beauty and horror to fashion a savage and lyrical cinematic poem. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Newsweek (David Ansen)
Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)
An art film to the core. If it's an epic, it's an intimate, dream-time epic, an elliptical, episodic film, dependent on images and reveries, that treats war as the ultimate nightmare, the one you just cannot awaken from no matter how hard you try. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Los Angeles Times (Kenneth Turan)
Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
The thinking person's Saving Private Ryan . ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
DVDTown.com (John J. Puccio)
Perhaps the movie's final, lasting image embraces all we know: From the mud grows the lotus. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at DVDTown.com (John J. Puccio)
Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
The thinking person's Saving Private Ryan . ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Washington Post (Michael O'Sullivan)
Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
Despite this film's narrative lapses, Malick has a unique way of distilling the poetry from the commonplace -- and for that precious gift we should say amen. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Austin Chronicle (Marjorie Baumgarten)
ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
A highly original piece of motion picture artistry! ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick)
far more interested in juxtaposing the beauty of nature untamed and the harsh destruction of mankind at war than ... telling a story or developing characters ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick)
Apollo Guide (Dan Jardine)
It's a thin (red) line between love and hate ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Apollo Guide (Dan Jardine)
Moviola (Jorge Avila Andrade)
Presenta los horrores de la guerra de una manera mucho más sutil que la cinta de Spielberg ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Moviola (Jorge Avila Andrade)
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (Rick Groen)
Like no other war movie you've ever seen. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at The Globe and Mail (Toronto) (Rick Groen)
Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) (Judith Egerton)
Won't be a commercial hit, but it will rank at the top of my list of best movies of 1998. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY) (Judith Egerton)
Movie Habit (Marty Mapes)
Globe and Mail (--)
Movie Parables (Michael Elliott)
Palo Alto Weekly (Susan Tavernetti)
Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
The movie's schizophrenia keeps it from greatness (this film has no firm idea of what it is about), but doesn't make it bad. It is, in fact, sort of fascinating: a film in the act of becoming, a field trial, an experiment in which a dreamy poet meditates ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
Although The Thin Red Line will not go down as the kind of war movie classic that Saving Private Ryan will, there are still many reasons to see this motion picture, especially for those who appreciate epic battle stories. See it for ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at ReelViews (James Berardinelli)
Filmtracks (Christian Clemmensen)
Not without a theme, The Thin Red Line does finally feature a performance
of the main theme by all three string sections in track eight; if you're not
listening closely, however, it could be easy to miss. The only full outburst of
electronic ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Filmtracks (Christian Clemmensen)
Cinema in Focus (Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin)
“The Thin Red Line†is an ambitious film attempting to project a complex experience onto the big screen. Written first as a novel by James Jones from his own combat experiences, this translation into film is both haunting and disappointing. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Cinema in Focus (Denny Wayman and Hal Conklin)
DVD Talk (Chris Hughes)
The Thin Red Line is a demanding film and, in the end, a very satisfying one. Many viewers may find the pace too slow on first screening and others may resent the fact that it isn't more concrete in its message. To my way of thinking those are its ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at DVD Talk (Chris Hughes)
DVD Talk (Scott Weinberg)
I'm well aware that The Thin Red Line is very well-regarded by the Malick fans out there, and on this, my second visit with the film after being fairly bored to tears during a multiplex viewing seven years ago, I really tried to "broaden my horizons" ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at DVD Talk (Scott Weinberg)
IMDB.com
Many of the `stars' who appear are nothing more than cameos. John Travolta, portraying the General in charge, looks surprisingly reminiscent of John Hodiak, a handsome star of the WWII era. George Clooney has but one scene as well. It is said that his ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick)
I have the feeling that, because writer/director Terrence Malick disappeared from the film scene for 20 years and became something of a myth--a legend--along the lines of J.D. Salinger, many have tried to see more in his third film, The Thin Red Line, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Q Network Film Desk (James Kendrick)
Movie Reviews UK
I imagine legendary filmmaker Terrence Malick directing The Thin Red Line crowned with a star-emblazoned wizard's hat, a coterie of idolising film buffs staring in awe as he stirs a steaming giant cauldron marked "My War Movie." This nearly three-hour ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Movie Reviews UK
IMDB.com
Among those characters are Capt. James Staros (Elias Koteas), Private Witt (James Caviezel), and Private Bell (Ben Chaplin). The latter two probably receive the most screen time of any of the characters. Witt is a dreamer, a soldier who has gone AWOL ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
The film is based on James Jones' 1962 novel, which was filmed in 1964 by Andrew Marton, focuses on dramatic tension, and philosophical imagery with each soldier of Charlie Company having a personal story.POSITIVE/NEGATIVE NITPICKS:The music of Hans ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
filmcritic.com (Christopher Null)
War is hell. I think.
Terrence Malick’s long-awaited and severely overhyped Line is plenty red, but it isn’t thin at all. In fact, it’s damn thick and dense, and it meanders about like a lazy river.
At almost three hours, The Thin ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at filmcritic.com (Christopher Null)
IMDB.com
Malick reaches for profundity once again in THE THIN RED LINE; the result is another good, greatlooking tone poem where deep thoughts stand in the way of genuine drama. Based on James Jones' 1962 novel, it tells the tale of the 194243 World War II ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Natural Born Viewers ("Geeky Marcus")
"The Thin Red Line" is about the Battle of Guadalcanal between Japanese on
crack and Americans on crack. I assume they are smoking some really powerful
pot, because while the Japanese are doing Banzai charges like all the
time, the Americans ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Natural Born Viewers ("Geeky Marcus")
Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
The actors in "The Thin Red Line" are making one movie, and the director is making another. This leads to an almost hallucinatory sense of displacement, as the actors struggle for realism, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Chicago Sun-Times (Roger Ebert)
Wolf Entertainment Guide (William Wolf)
Dallas Observer (Andy Klein)
What Malick has fashioned here is less a conventional narrative than an impressionistic mosaic of our common, yet varied experience of life and death, as focused and clarified through the relentless lens of war. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Dallas Observer (Andy Klein)
Wolf Entertainment Guide (William Wolf)
Washington Post (Stephen Hunter)
A big, fat, gorgeous, mesmerizing mess. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Washington Post (Stephen Hunter)
Entertainment Weekly (Owen Gleiberman)
An epic aestheticization of World War II, a movie at once bold and baffling, immediate and abstract. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Entertainment Weekly (Owen Gleiberman)
San Francisco Examiner (Edvins Beitiks)
Powerful war spectacle neglects novel's heart and much of story. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at San Francisco Examiner (Edvins Beitiks)
IMDB.com
This film certainly doesn't play like a conventional war film. A good portion of the film focuses on the soldiers' thoughts about the starkness of reality while scenes of their personal Eden flash back and forth like some Nature channel montage. As an ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
William Thomas Cummings said "There are no atheists in foxholes." According to "The Thin Red Line," there was at least one, along with a number of bad poets and first year philosophy students. Visually sumptuous and astoundingly pretentious, "The Thin ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
IMDB.com
could be said about THE THIN RED LINE, 1998 war movie directedby Terence Malick.THE THIN RED LINE was one of the most talked about and mosteagerly awaited films of 1990s. Its director Terence Malick has madeonly two films in 1970s; in next two decades ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Laramie Movie Scope (Robert Roten)
One thing you can't fault is the cinematography by John Toll. There are some fantastic images in this film. The battle scenes are also well done and there's some good stunt work. The story, an adaptation of James Jones' autobiographical 1962 novel is ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Laramie Movie Scope (Robert Roten)
IMDB.com
At two and three quarter hours long, the movie meanders throughout but not nearly as bad as in the relatively pointless first and last acts. The movie might be a candidate for the record book in that it is perhaps the first movie that would be improved ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at IMDB.com
Big Picture Big Sound (Joe Lozito)
"The Thin Red Line", Terrence Malick's brooding, over-long return to filmmaking after a nearly twenty-year hiatus, can be summed up with three truisms to which the film vehemently adheres for its almost three-hour running time: Every soldier is a poet, ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Big Picture Big Sound (Joe Lozito)
JoBlo's Movie Emporium ("JoBlo")
This film may just be the best-looking movie of the year. It may also contain a solid cast of actors, effective tension when required, and a life-like feel of being in the bush with the boys. Unfortunately for this 170-minute, overdone, ode to ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at JoBlo's Movie Emporium ("JoBlo")
New York Times (Janet Maslin)
Intermittently brilliant! ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at New York Times (Janet Maslin)
LA Weekly (Manohla Dargis)
Malick dangles his maddeningly innocent ideas about life and death and man's gift for self-destruction. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at LA Weekly (Manohla Dargis)
MediaCircus (Anthony Leong)
Jump Cut (Ekkehard Knorer)
rec.arts.movies.reviews (David Sunga)
Film Written Magazine (Andrew Howe)
Depressingly clinical. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film Written Magazine (Andrew Howe)
Cinemaphile.org (David Keyes)
Salon.com (Charles Taylor)
The Thin Red Line, either by incompetence or willful perversity, dispenses with plot, characterization, dramatic structure and emotional payoffs in favor of the sort of painstakingly composed pictorial diddling that invariably gets critics frothing about ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Salon.com (Charles Taylor)
Film Written Magazine (Andrew Howe)
Depressingly clinical. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film Written Magazine (Andrew Howe)
Film Threat, Hollywood's Indie Voice
Um, the emperor has no clothes. Well, ok, he's got some funky boxers, but the clown shoes have got to go. If he's not going to come outside for twenty years, he should at least ask somebody how he looks before he steps through the door.(DEEP breath) ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film Threat, Hollywood's Indie Voice
Revenge of the Audience (Erik Gregersen)
At-A-Glance Film Reviews (--)
Film Threat (--)
Mr. Cranky Rates the Movies (Mr. Cranky)
eFilmCritic.com (Erik Childress)
Matt's Movie Reviews (Matt Easterbrook)
AboutFilm.com (Carlo Cavagna)
The voiceovers ruminating on the nature of war, humanity, etc., are especially intrusive. It would appear that every person in the film is something of an introspective philosopher. Perhaps it is because Malick has failed to tell his story coherently or ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at AboutFilm.com (Carlo Cavagna)
Flick Filosopher (MaryAnn Johanson)
Nitrate Online (Carrie Gorringe)
rec.arts.movies.reviews (Dustin Putman)
Cinematter (Matt Williams)
A study in pretension, The Thin Red Line marks the infamously reclusive director Terrence Malick's anticlimactic return to the cinema. On the surface, the film is a war movie, based on the James Jones novel of the same name. But, this film has no real ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Cinematter (Matt Williams)
Reviews by John Haywood (John Haywood)
Needcoffee.com (Widgett Walls)
An hour of the film is shots of flora and voiceovers of soldiers, all of which sound like parts of Wings of Desire that Wenders left on the writing room floor. ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Needcoffee.com (Widgett Walls)
Film Threat, Hollywood's Indie Voice
Love a film, hate a film, all points in between--I generally know what I want to say and how to say it. So why, then, do I feel so ill-equipped to thoroughly articulate my feelings about Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line Perhaps it's just my own ...read the complete Thin Red Line movie review at Film Threat, Hollywood's Indie Voice
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