This absurdly pretentious atrocity of a film is beloved by pretentious film school students and critics, but abhorred by basically everyone else. It holds an inflated rating because it came out before online reviews existed, and is in general only reviewed in retrospect by fans of the auteur director and those same pretentious film school fools already mentioned. General audiences hated the film at the time of its release, and doubtless would continue to hate it if they even remembered it.

I saw this one in theaters myself, and while I managed to stay in the "utterly bored" camp, at least one of my friends crossed that thin red line into falling asleep, which one would think would be difficult in a war film, but alas, this is a three hour-long bad poetry recital, with occasional shots of a war film playing in the background.

The film gets so much wrong it would be a monumental task to draw attention to it all, but the attitudes of virtually every character seem transported from some other era, Vietnam perhaps, and painted garishly thick over a setting in which they clearly do not belong. Every character is a cynic in a time where cynicism was not celebrated; few characters are deeply religious in a time when religion was pervasive, and those who are religious are presented as idiotic stereotypes; every character is against the war and resents being "forced" to fight, at a time when American patriotism was at an all-time high, enlistments were through the roof, and the American public's support for the war was as close to universal as it ever has been. The director's understanding of the Second World War, and particularly of the Guadalcanal Campaign, are woefully lacking, and as a result the entire tone of the film is critically flawed.

I could go on, but most of the people reading this review are likely to be those same pretentious film school students I've already slighted, sure to ratio my review into oblivion. If that's you, I honestly wish you the joy of this film. The universe requires some balancing after I sat through this atrocity for a second time.

It just isn't good. It is inaccurate about both the Japanese and the natives. It is most likely inaccurate about most WWII US soldiers. It is a bunch of undeveloped characters all inner-monologuing the same type of pretentious "poetry". These characters are set off against their superior officers. I didn't notice any of them inner-monologuing, but, honestly, sometimes it is just a blur. And honestly, there were times I shut the volume off for a few minutes. That was the best way to endure this, instead of shutting the whole thing off. I guess the superior officers are too busy being evil to inner-monologue.

I'm as "anti-war" as most people. The cartoonish approach of this film does not do justice to that.

Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line was his return to movie making after a 20 year hiatus.

It is an adaptation of James Jones novel of the US assault against the Japanese on Guadalcanal in 1942.

It is an abstract, lyrical even pretentious film without a coherent narrative and without any central characters.

To understand the movie, you have to appreciate Malick's vision of cinema. Philosophical, meditative, haunting, transcendental. The nature of good and evil, the balance in the natural world.

Imagery and emotion are strong focal points of the movie. Created by John Toll's lush cinematography among the long grass, the forest, the hills, the water and enlivened by Hans Zimmer's music.

Malick had a mixture of unknown and known actors for this movie. Such was his reputation, actors competed to appear for just brief moments.

John Travolta and George Clooney have cameos for just seconds. Nick Nolte and Sean Penn have juicier roles. Penn plays a cynical and broody Sgt Welsh who accepts that the army just wants the grunts dead.

Nolte plays the veteran Lt Col Tall who is all out for full throated action and cares little about the number of casualties.

Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) is the soldier who likes to go AWOL. He has a sensitive soul that appreciates the beauty of nature and the tribal people. Private Bell (Ben Chaplin) harks back to his life at home with his wife. He writes letters to her and receives one where she asks for a divorce. In his absence she has found another man.

Future Oscar winners Adrien Brody and Jared Leto hardly have any lines. Brody had a substantial part in the movie but it was severely cut during editing. Other actors who appeared in the movie were excised altogether.

This is not a film for everyone, more aimed for cinephiles than a general audience. It was released in the same year as Saving Private Ryan. Maybe this was the better war movie.