The Thin Red Line (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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Director: Terrence Malick
Actors: James Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo, Penelope Allen
Studio: Criterion Collection
Category: DVD

List Price: ~~$39.95~~
Buy New: $29.49
as of 9/6/2010 19:02 CDT details
You Save: $10.46 (26%)

Seller: Amazon.com
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

937 reviews
Sales Rank: 1016

Format: Color, DTS Surround Sound, Special Edition, Widescreen
Languages: English (Unknown), English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Blu-ray
Region: 1
Discs: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
Running Time: 170 Minutes

UPC: 715515062411
EAN: 0715515062411
ASIN: B003KGBIRA

Theatrical Release Date: 1998
Release Date: September 28, 2010 (In 22 Days)
Shipping: Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet released

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Editorial Reviews:

Amazon.com
One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of The Thin Red Line in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece Days of Heaven (1978), returned to the director's chair after a 20-year coffee break. Malick's comeback vehicle is a fascinating choice: a wide-ranging adaptation of a World War II novel (filmed once before, in 1964) by James Jones. The battle for Guadalcanal Island gives Malick an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling--or simply let the camera contemplate the first steps of a newly birthed tropical bird, the sinister skulk of a crocodile. This is not especially an actors' movie--some faces go by so quickly they barely register--but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private (newcomer Jim Caviezel). The picture's sprawl may be a result of Malick's method of "finding" a film during shooting and editing, and in some ways The Thin Red Line seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete. Yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. --Robert Horton

Product Description
After directing two of the most extraordinary movies of the 1970s, Badlands and Days of Heaven, American artist Terrence Malick disappeared from the film world for twenty years, only to resurface in 1998 with this visionary adaptation of James Jones’s 1962 novel about the World War II battle for Guadalcanal. A big-budget, spectacularly mounted epic, The Thin Red Line is also one of the most deeply philosophical films ever released by a major Hollywood studio, a thought-provoking meditation on man, nature, and violence. Featuring a cast of contemporary cinema’s finest actors—Sean Penn (Dead Man Walking, Milk), Nick Nolte (The Prince of Tides, Affliction), Elias Koteas (Zodiac, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and Woody Harrelson (Natural Born Killers, The People vs. Larry Flynt) among them—The Thin Red Line is a kaleidoscopic evocation of the experience of combat that ranks as one of cinema’s greatest war films.

Customer Reviews:

Showing reviews 1-5 of 937

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Frustrating and dull August 20, 2010
Will (Maryland, USA)
6 out of 11 found this review helpful

I'll preface this review, and try not to sound like a complete rube, by saying that I've seen one other Malick movie, The New World, about a year before this one, and absolutely loved that. However, everything that worked for that movie did not work for this movie. The long, lingering shots of trees and animals made sense in The New World, since it's ostensibly a movie about man's relationship to the world; in this movie, those same shots just seem ponderous and unnecessary.

There are those who would say that this is not a "war movie", and I'll grant them that. However, I'd say that this barely even qualifies as a "movie". There are no main characters, and there is no narrative. After 3 hours, I could name a single character, one of the two whose backstories are told. Plus, the number of big-name actors in this is distracting to the point of ridiculousness. While some, like Sean Penn and Nick Nolte, are excellent, having recognizable people like John Cusack and John C. Reilly randomly enter then exit the film really takes you out of the movie.

Apparently, Malick originally shot about 6 hours of movie, but cut it down to 3 hours (and completely cut out an additional half-dozen big-name actors). The entire movie, I felt like I was watching something less than a whole, some arbitrary subset of scenes edited together, often seemingly out-of-order, that were just incomplete glimpses of characters and subplots that might've been better developed in a longer version.

Ultimately, I found this movie very frustrating. I loved The New World, and really wanted to love this, especially with so many bits of greatness and beauty. But then those bits would be followed by scenes like a random George Clooney cameo at the very end of the movie, and I'd immediately remember why I wasn't enjoying it. If I want to watch a movie about WW2, I'll gladly watch Saving Private Ryan (which is apparently still cool to bash 12 years later) or its HBO miniseries equivalents. If I want to get high and watch 3 hours of jungle footage, with soldiers and their poetic thoughts randomly walking through, I'll watch this.

1 out of 5 stars

Can we please wait for the Blu-Ray? August 12, 2010
Casimir (West Marin)
2 out of 18 found this review helpful

OK, I understand that this is a film that many people like (it has been out on DVD for a while, and there are plenty of reviews of its quality around--on DVD). When I come to this specific site, I know the film, what I don't know is what is the film like TECHNICALLY as a blu-ray. These reviews do not help with that goal. They just take up space at the "front of the bus," so to speak. Can we hold off waxing about how good the blu-ray will be UNTIL we actually see what it is like? One star for the fan momentum, four stars for the film, and who knows how many stars for the blu-ray.

5 out of 5 stars

"Sarge, do you ever get lonely?"... August 11, 2010
Jon (NY)
3 out of 4 found this review helpful

... "Only around people."

This one peice of conversational dialogue sums up the essence of Terrence Malick's "The Thin Red Line", a war film like no other.

Before praising it, I will explain why it might fail in some viewer's eyes:

1) The cast is top heavy with celebrity stars and this can be distracting. That said, they all play their roles magnificiently. Some are cast against type, other's performances are completely over the top like Nick Nolte and Sean Penn.

James Caviezel, while not exactly a household name in 1998, carries the picture well and personally retains a particular yet recognizable Southern face perfectly suited to his character. His character is the embodiment of a purely Christian ethic: he despises none and bows to all.

2) The voiced-over thoughts of every major and minor character can be unnerving and leave the viewer without an "anchor". All I can suggest is, get over it.

3) The film has no concise plot. The film bobs on the waves of war, though it has direction. It is structured more like a 'chick-flick': that is, as a slice of life than a deliberate story. You follow the characters as they make their way through the green hell that is Guadalcanal; some change, some remain untouched.

"The Thin Red Line"'s greatest achievement is on the spiritual/humanistic level and this is attained by more than just the dialogue. The visuals are overwhelming when seen on the silver screen, it will lose something on a television. The major character's etheric philosophizing forces the viewer to witness Malick's visuals in a novel way. In many instances the viewer is made to feel as if they are placed at the center of the action, but not in the stylised way that TTRL's contemporary "Saving Private Ryan" does. It is more the essence of rolling hills of tall grass leaning on the wind, idyllic in the empirical sense yet fraught with hidden menace in the context of the war. The film is deliberately paced, draining every moment of the terror the soldiers experience for the viewer's sake.

Each one of the soldiers highlighted in the story plumbs the depths of emotion in their own way: the captain's pride in his men and his heartache at their deaths, a private's daydream of making love to his wife as he crawls toward an enemy machine gun nest, the colonel sick and twisted by self loathing - torn by his personal ambition and his guilt. The film contains more than enough harrowing realistic action but the horror of war is placed in the context of the soldier's individual experience. In that sense, no matter how loud the gunfire, artillery, or screams this is a quiet film.

At the heart of this drama is the sense that every man fights his own war and fights it on his own, despite the proximity of his fellows. The griefs they suffer are of the spirit as well as of the flesh and are shared less because of their personal nature and the nature of masculinity. These psychic wounds are just as destructive if not more so.

The film's score is the only one I've ever been compelled to purchase on cd. Composer Hans Zimmer weaves a beautiful and poignant aural tapestry of traditional melody with his own dark and majestic themes.

The film is long and winding and will probably take two viewings to fully grasp it's particular rhythm and structure. Though the dialogue is often savage and angry the film is poetic in it's effect. No war film I've seen deserves the Criterion treatment more than Malick's does and I expect their transfer to be outstanding.

4 out of 5 stars

Quality Product - Decent Film July 24, 2010
Adams Outlet
The film came is quality packaging and looked as if it was manufactured the day before.

Quality product.

The film itself it mediocre as best. Many inaccurate portrayls of war. Also very slow paced. Do not expect a 'Saving Private Ryan'.

I will say the cast is excellent, and it is entertaining to see so many A list actors in once film, also be prepared for some cameo's from other big actors.

For the price - I paid 5$, it's well worth it.

Thanks for reading.

5 out of 5 stars

An amazing film May 29, 2010
Michael Wrekon (St.Louis,MO)
This is a fantastic film that many people have put down, and while I see where they're coming from, I really believe that they're missing the point of the movie. I remember one of my friends was lucky enough to see this film in theatres (I didn't get the oppertunity to) and he said he walked out half way through, however he did say that he loved Saving Private Ryan, which every one always seems to compare to this movie as they both came out around the same year. Well I've said my peace I only wanted to write a review in hopes that it might help this movie upgrade its undeserving 3 1/2 star rating to a 4 (or maybe someday its deserving 5 when people maybe grow up and get mature and learn to appreciate good filmmaking). Oh and read the book of the same name by James Jones, it to is amazing.

Showing reviews 1-5 of 937

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