American troops invade, led by Captain Staros (Elias Koteas), who is more concerned with keeping his men alive than in marching them up the hill to face an entrenched Japanese machine gun nest.
Ranking below Staros is Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn). Other soldiers we see often include Witt (Jim Caviezel), Bell (Ben Chaplin), Gaff (John Cusack), Fife (Adrien Brody), Storm (John C. Reilly), and Keck (Woody Harrelson). Witt is a free spirit resistent to Army groupthink. Bell longs to reunite with gorgeous wife, who apparently spends her days in her house lounging about naked. Welsh fears that the horrors of war are making him lose his humanity, but he knows better than to become a dreamer like Witt.
How others will see it. The Thin Red Line is famous for its rivalry with Saving Private Ryan, released about the same time. The latter film won the Oscars and made hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office, while The Thin Red Line was a box office flop and won no Oscars. Saving Private Ryan also has the decidedly higher imdb.com user rating (8.6 versus 7.6).
The difference in reception stems from audience expectations. Saving Private Ryan delivers, and The Thin Red Line does not. The former is entertainment, and the latter is art. Malick couldn't care less if the audience is baffled by scenes of Private Bell's lovely languid wife, and what relevance they might have to the Battle of Guadalcanal. Steven Spielberg eschews such material, knowing that it would alienate many viewers.
Those in search of a big budget version of Beach Red (1967) won't find it here. Soldiers die, and the hill is taken, but the thrill of victory is absent. Instead, we have bewilderment, fear, and cynicism.
How I felt about it. It took about twenty years for eccentric Austin filmmaker Terrence Malick to follow up on his acclaimed movie Days of Heaven. But it was certainly worth the wait. One can measure the respect that A-list Hollywood actors had for this movie by their desire to land roles in the project, no matter how small. The roster includes George Clooney, John Travolta, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, and Jared Leto. Bill Pullman, Martin Sheen, and Mickey Rourke were filmed but ultimately edited out from the final print.
But Malick wasn't going to assign a star to a specific role merely to add prestige to the film. Jim Caviezel, Elias Koteas, and Ben Chaplin are onscreen for sizeable chunks of the film, in lieu of more famous actors.
Malick's modus operandi is storytelling through beautiful cinematography and voiceovers. Each shot stands on its own as photographic art, yet also works as part of a cohesive whole. Dialogue is plentiful, but when it would be unnatural, voiceovers are used instead to express the thoughts and dreams of the characters.
The Thin Red Line is said to be anti-war, but it is not in the same sense as Apocalypse Now or Platoon. It is true that Nolte's character values a promotion more than the lives of hundreds of his soliders. But the hill has to be taken, the Japanese must be defeated, and The Thin Red Line is more about the fog of war than the death it causes.