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The Thin Red Line [VHS] [1999]
 
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The Thin Red Line [VHS] [1999]

VHS ~ James Caviezel
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)

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4 new from £0.94 23 used from £0.01 3 collectible from £0.80

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Product details

  • Actors: James Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Kirk Acevedo, Penelope Allen
  • Directors: Terrence Malick
  • Writers: Terrence Malick, James Jones
  • Producers: George Stevens Jr., Grant Hill, John Roberdeau, Michael Stevens, Robert Michael Geisler
  • Format: Closed-captioned, Dolby, PAL, Surround Sound
  • Language English
  • Classification: 15
  • Studio: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
  • VHS Release Date: 21 Feb 2000
  • Run Time: 164 minutes
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (87 customer reviews)
  • ASIN: B00004CZ6Z
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 3,348 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

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Product Description

Amazon.co.uk Review

One of the cinema's great disappearing acts came to a close with the release of The Thin Red Line in late 1998. Terrence Malick, the cryptic recluse who withdrew from Hollywood visibility after the release of his visually enthralling masterpiece Days of Heaven (1978), returned to the director's chair after a 20-year coffee break. Malick's comeback vehicle is a fascinating choice: a wide-ranging adaptation of a World War II novel (filmed once before, in 1964) by James Jones. The battle for Guadalcanal Island gives Malick an opportunity to explore nothing less than the nature of life, death, God, and courage. Let that be a warning to anyone expecting a conventional war flick; Malick proves himself quite capable of mounting an exciting action sequence, but he's just as likely to meander into pure philosophical noodling--or simply let the camera contemplate the first steps of a newly born tropical bird or the sinister skulk of a crocodile. This is not especially an actors' movie--some faces go by so quickly they barely register--but the standouts are bold: Nick Nolte as a career-minded colonel, Elias Koteas as a deeply spiritual captain who tries to protect his men, Ben Chaplin as a G.I. haunted by lyrical memories of his wife. The backbone of the film is the ongoing discussion between a wry sergeant (Sean Penn) and an ethereal, almost holy private newcomer (Jim Caviezel). The picture's sprawl may be a result of Malick's method of "finding" a film during shooting and editing, and in some ways The Thin Red Line seems vaguely, intriguingly incomplete. Yet it casts a spell like almost nothing else of its time, and Malick's visionary images are a challenge and a signpost to the rest of his filmmaking generation. --Robert Horton

Synopsis

A realistic view of the hell that was the Pacific during the Second World War.
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Customer Reviews

87 Reviews
5 star:
 (43)
4 star:
 (18)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (14)
1 star:
 (10)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (87 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars For once a war movie that doesn't glorify war, 27 Nov 2007
This review is from: The Thin Red Line [DVD] [1999] [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] (DVD)
Of all the war movies, that I have seen, I would rate this one as one of the best. It depicts the horrors and meaninglessness of war, instead of glorifying it, and how it destroys the people participating in it. This movie shows war from a personal perspective with much work done in showing the soldiers emotions and their dilemmas of conscience. It is a thin red line between sanity and insanity that is being tread.

Good acting and one where Sean Penn stood out as an actor for me.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the best war films ever!, 29 Sep 2006
By SJ SMART "Smartie" (London) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Thin Red Line [1999] [DVD] (DVD)
This is one my favourite films ever, its a beautiful piece of art, very moving and powerful with an excellent soundtrack. Alongside the artistic message though is some of the toughest and most realistic battle scenes I have ever ever witnessed in a movie, really on a par with "Saving Private Ryan".

Its a testimony to how good the story/script is and the reputation of the director Terence Malick by how many famous actors wanted to appear in the film. Some like Nick Nolte and Sean Penn appear throughout the move, others like George Clooney and John Travola only have brief scenes and others like Nicholas Cage and Martin Sheen were apparently cut out to make the nearly 3 hour length of the film more "acceptable."

Some people dont like this film because of its length and that it takes 40 mins before the first battle starts but I feel this mirrors real life, in that you dont flick a switch and something starts and then stops in war, things build up especially battles. We see the men cooped up on the transport ship with the tension building, the beach assault with a mysteriously missing enemy, the march through the endless jungle, passing wounded going the over way and the ever present nature/wildlife which seems indifferent to the wars of man. The locals for the most part certainly do (although in reality, and in some scenes, they did assist the Allies against the hated Japanese who abused their women and made slaves of the men.)

When the action begins it explodes, if you like thoughtful interesting films that make you think and that move you watch The Thin Red Line. It should have 10 stars.
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25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Pacifica, 1 Sep 2005
By C. J. Statham - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: The Thin Red Line [1999] [DVD] (DVD)
This film shatters the standard convetions for a war film and gently replaces them with an intrinsic, poetic and beautifully rendered piece of film making. From start to finish the quality of the photography is fantastic and the director's faultless talent to depict vivid environments is wonderfully illustrated with seamless editing.

A scene depicting two soldiers getting shot while approaching a bunker is superbly complimented by the sun peaking out from the clouds just after they have fallen and disappeared into the tall grass. The absolute tension and thick air of the pre-dawn build-up to the attack with Nick Nolte and John Travolta is one of the greatest scenes of tension I have witnessed.

Personal narratives and agendas throughout the film flood the viewer with emotions and feelings that you wouldn't normally associate with a war film. The soundtrack here is also one of the film's strong points and effortlessly entwines itself into the path of the edits. Engrossing, beautiful and an absolute pleasure to immerse yourself into.

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best War Film
Is it perfect? No. However it is the closest anyone has ever come to completely defining the genre. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Mervyn Walters

5.0 out of 5 stars There's not some other world out there where everything's going to be ok. There's just this one.
Terence Malick eh? What to make of him. He certainly does divide opinion and I can understand why some people don't like his films. Read more
Published 1 month ago by A. Willard

1.0 out of 5 stars Yawn
Sorry, but I found this tedious and pretentious in the extreme. I only lasted the length of the film because I was off sick with a chest infection and was bored. Read more
Published 2 months ago by A. Ginman

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourite movies!
The Thin Red Line was released about the same time as Saving Private Ryan yet it was overshadowed by the hype of Spielberg's `boys own' war adventure, yet in my opinion this is a... Read more
Published 4 months ago by I. R. Barnes

2.0 out of 5 stars The Thin Red Waste of My Time!
My friends and I found this film utterly disappointing. After a very long wait for some action we then had a very long endurance of random and monotonous pyrotechnics... Read more
Published 7 months ago by Bill Harris

5.0 out of 5 stars Greatest 'war' film ever made
I hadn't heard of the Thin Red Line until I by chance caught it on TV last spring and I immediatley fell in love with it. Read more
Published 7 months ago by L. Macnamara

5.0 out of 5 stars LIFE AND DEATH IN A TROPICAL PARADISE
winner -golden bear -berlin
nominated for 7 oscars incl.best pic

This war movie by terrence mallick based on the book by JAMES JONES details the 6 month... Read more
Published 9 months ago by oz

1.0 out of 5 stars I wanted to like this movie too
I've never given a movie 1 star before. This movie is a dissapointment to say the least for me as a movie fan. Read more
Published 10 months ago by K. Maloney

2.0 out of 5 stars War as art?
I have a problem with this film. I wanted to stop watching it, not because it was harrowing or graphic,but because I found it over long and irritating. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Dick Chuckens

1.0 out of 5 stars not good
each to thier own, but I thought this was slower than watching paint fade and twice as boring.
Published 12 months ago by Thermoman

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