“This great evil, where’s it come from?“
THE THIN RED LINE is a masterfully made and significantly powerful war epic. With this film, Terrence Malick has crafted one of the greatest war films to ever be made.
It boasts a stellar cast, featuring superbly humane and realistic performances from Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Woodey Harrelson, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte and Dash Mihok.
Malick’s war epic deeply and viscerally explores the attitudes of soldiers in life-or-death situations and examines their fates, in the forefront of the Battle of Guadalcanal, during World War II.
Malick’s direction of the film is absolutely adept, making every scene feel as visceral as the other, making the audience feel like they were placed in the forefront of this terrible war. The pacing is made to feel very natural. The imagery used enhances the film’s narrative, by adding depth and layers to its significance and meaning.
The immersive cinematography from John Toll, only adds to the film’s expertise of being an all-surrounding experience. It’s not only divinely gorgeous, despite the harsh nature of war depicted in it, but it’s very naturalistic and grounded in the film’s gritty tone of war.
Adding an additional touch of sentiment to the film’s visceral nature is Hans Zimmer’s menacing score, which at times manages to feel very human and compassionate.
Malick’s epic is a brutally gritty and grounded view on a very inhumane war. It intensely depicts the human struggle of war – the hardship, the pain, the  side-effects, and the loss of our humanity and our most human feelings.
The war epic is viscerally immersive and unsparing as an experience. The spiritual nature of Malick’s films once again plays a huge role in the film’s atmosphere of questioning the evil in us that ignites this war.
Mercilessly truthful and humanely grounded, Malick’s war epic is easily one of the best, and most deeply in-touch examinations of war ever put to screen.
Score: ★★★★★
