Hey, there, I took the evening off and went to see "The Thin Red Line." "Saving Pvt. Ryan" it ain't. WWII as filmed by National Geographic. Script by James Joyce. It definitely has its redeeming moments, but every time you think this movie is going to end, it comes back to life. Sort of. If there is a single animal indigenous to Guadacanal that is not shown in this movie, I would like to know what it is. I think most viewers get the juxtapostion of natural beauty and the horrors of war the first 100 times it appears in this film; the next 6000 are gratuitious. In between shots of fruit bats, crocodiles, parrots, et al, we get long passages of spoken introspection, featuring many speakers. What may have made a book a war literature classic does not work on the screen. Trust me. Still, the flick does have its redeeming values. Some good acting and some intense battle scenes. And the cinematography is gorgeous; it's just overdone. So--what did you get into this evening? Movie Review: The Thin Red Line (1) Back to Dispatch Apr. 99 Table of Contents Back to Dispatch List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1999 by HMGS Mid-South This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com