The thing about The Thin Red Line is that it tries too hard to be more than just another war film and ultimately fails to be much of anything.
It's slower than most war-films but I don't mind that, it's just that it never really gets anywhere. It's supposed to convey the pointlessness of war, the fragility of life (and it's diminished value during war time) and the great sacrifices made by ordinary men. However, I find it fails to deliver.
It's almost as if the film has a crisis of identity. One the one hand there's the slow-paced, melodiously narrated sections - then there's the almost comical bits, e.g. when Woody Harrelson's character fumbles his own grenade - then there's the 'Art-House' scenes where a raging battlefield cuts to the birth of a chicken. Because it doesn't settle on a theme it becomes disjointed and disconnected.
For me, Letters from Iwo Jima conveys the 'futility of war' theme much better and it's got better set-pieces. It might also be that it has a smaller cast, but I think it's easier to connect to the characters in LfIJ compared to TTRL.
Panzer
It's slower than most war-films but I don't mind that, it's just that it never really gets anywhere. It's supposed to convey the pointlessness of war, the fragility of life (and it's diminished value during war time) and the great sacrifices made by ordinary men. However, I find it fails to deliver.
It's almost as if the film has a crisis of identity. One the one hand there's the slow-paced, melodiously narrated sections - then there's the almost comical bits, e.g. when Woody Harrelson's character fumbles his own grenade - then there's the 'Art-House' scenes where a raging battlefield cuts to the birth of a chicken. Because it doesn't settle on a theme it becomes disjointed and disconnected.
For me, Letters from Iwo Jima conveys the 'futility of war' theme much better and it's got better set-pieces. It might also be that it has a smaller cast, but I think it's easier to connect to the characters in LfIJ compared to TTRL.
Panzer
