Audiences bored by Red Line

The new World War II epic, The Thin Red Line , has all the ingredients of a great film. Its director, Terrence Malick, has been praised by critics for his earlier films, Days of Heaven and Badlands. Its cast is filled with great, A-list actors like Sean Penn, John Travolta, George Clooney, and John Cusack, and its story is adapted from a novel by James Jones, the author of From Here to Eternity.

All the elements follow the formula that make a movie truly extraordinary, but there is just one minor problem: The director forgot to put any excitement into the picture, thus creating a nearly three-hour movie that bores the living daylights out of the audience.

The story, which could have made a great movie, follows the soldiers of C Company during the battle for Guadalcanal. After about 30 minutes of dancing around the subject, Malick finally embraces the reason why everyone paid $6.50, the invasion. As the landing crafts hit the beach an air of excitement fills the theater, where audience members begin having flashbacks to last summer's magnificent World War II film, Saving Private Ryan. Sadly, the excitement dies down when it becomes clear that it will be at least another 10 minutes before a single shot is heard.

Finally, the bombs go off and the excitement returns. However, this time it is a little dulled due to such a long anticipation. The battle finally starts, but wait, this fighting is nothing like the Spielberg flick. This is much more boring. You would never think that a group of guys running up a hill with bullets whizzing past them and bombs blowing up around them could be boring, but Malick pulls it off like a champ.

Another reason for the intense boredom this movie creates comes from Malick's refusal to let the audience relate to the main characters. These characters, who are played by no-name actors like Jim Caviezel, Dash Mihok and Ben Chaplin, rarely ever speak. Throughout most of the film, their poetic thoughts are voiced-over onto the screen. This might seem like a clever concept except most of the time it is difficult to decide which character's thoughts are being spoken. This is done throughout the entire movie and it never allows the audience to understand or relate to any particular character.

By the end of the film, no one cares whether this group of soldiers in C Company lives or dies. In fact, most people will actually want to see them get killed, because their deaths will clearly have to be more exciting than their lives.

Now, this movie isn't a complete waste. If you ignore the irritating babble of the soldiers' voice-overs and open your eyes from the deep sleep the movie has put you in, you will notice that the scenery is actually quite beautiful. Unfortunately, movies need much more than good scenery to keep an audience entertained.

This movie is not Saving Private Ryan. Some critics have hailed it as an extraordinary film but the only thing extraordinary about it is how exciting the previews make it look. If you want the same experience The Thin Red Line offers, you can save yourself $6.50 by simply reading an issue of National Geographic and watching C-SPAN for three hours.