THE THIN RED LINE (4) vs. MERRILL'S MARAUDERS (13)

 

VS. 

 

 

 THE THIN RED LINE (4) vs.
MERRILL'S MARAUDERS (13)

ACTING:

          “The Thin Red Line” marked the long awaited return of director Terrence Malick after 20 years hiatus. His fame was such that a slew of actors wanted to be part of his new project. Curiously, he chose to adapt James Jones’ seminal WWII novel about fighting men on Guadalcanal. The cast is impressive, but Malick does not bring out the best in them. This becomes apparent early on with a robotic John Travolta doing a cameo as an Army general. This is bookended with a “look at me, I’m working for Malick” appearance by George Clooney at the end. In between we get either underplaying (Jim Caviezel as Witt or Elias Koteas as Staros) or scene chewing (Nick Nolte as Tall). Malick apparently instructed most of the supporting cast of GIs to play their closeups as though they were scared shitless. Much of the performances are embarrassing and some are laughable.

          “Merrill’s Marauders” has a B-List cast of vaguely familiar faces. Jeff Chandler (in his last role) is strong as Gen. Merrill. Ty Hardin gives able support as his “he’s like a son to me” Lt. Stockton. The members of Stockton’s squad are adequate and do the best they can considering they are benchwarmers. There is also a mule that performs better than most of the cast of “The Thin Red Line”.

FIRST QUARTER SCORE:
The Thin Red Line 5
Merrill’s Marauders 7
CLICHES:

          TRL is, of course, not a traditional combat unit narrative. Malick definitely plots outside the box. You do have a defined objective – the taking of a ridge. There is a character in need of redemption (Witt), but Malick dispenses with this arc in a cursory way that makes little sense (which means it fits the movie nicely). There is also the mail call scene which results in a Dear John letter to Bell that is shocking in its non-shocking revelation. It does have the conflict within the unit between Col. Tall and Capt. Staros, but it is resolved with the firing of Staros.

         MM would seem to be rife for clichés, but Samuel Fuller keeps that from happening. The basic framework is there. A unit of men, led by a hero, undertake a mission that involves movement to a defined objective. There is the typical action/hiking alternating with resting/talking. There is no redemption figure and only a modest group conflict involving a jerk named “Chowhound” which is not resolved through a hug, but instead by a Japanese bullet. The command disagreement between Merrill and Stockton is similar to the one in TTRL, but its resolution is more clicheish.

HALF TIME SCORE:
The Thin Red Line 12
Merrill’s Marauders 14
PLOT:
          TRL has a linear plot starting with arrival on the island through to departure. In between is the assault on the ridge followed by R&R and then a mission to get Witt killed. In between are numerous flashbacks to Bell’s flat-chested wife and to Witt’s idyllic AWOL with the natives. Throw in numerous “high as a hippie” voiceovers by “who the Hell is talking now” and you get Malick’s script. Much of the plot is head-scratching and some of the characters behave bizarrely. Just one example, the tough guy Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn) abandons his squad pre-suicide attack to escort an obvious malingerer back to safety and then next time we see him he is sprinting through a hail of bullets to over-syrette a wounded GI. The whole man versus nature theme is ridiculous to anyone who has knowledge of how horrific nature actually was on the tropical “opposite of a paradise” that was Guadalcanal.

          MM is surprisingly standard in plotting. This is surprising considering it is a Fuller film. The unit is sent on a long-range penetration into Japanese territory to capture a key town. After capturing each “last objective before returning home”, the unit is “volunteered” to push on one last time. The plot alternates between treks through swamps or over mountains and intense bouts of combat. It concentrates on Stock’s intelligence and reconnaissance platoon. The other subplot is over Merrill’s heart problems. One theme is the role of leadership to get men to preform beyond their limits. This is realistically portrayed.

THIRD QUARTER SCORE:
The Thin Red Line 18
Merrill’s Marauders 21
COMBAT:

          Some fans of TTRL excuse the other flaws by playing up the excellent combat scenes. Although the combat scenes do tend to serve the purpose of waking up the slumbering audience, they are not special. The first charge up the hill through tall grass has some frenzy to it with explosions trampolining soldiers through the air and victims being stitched with machine gun bullets. It is such that it is hard to see how anyone in the company could still be alive. The second scene is the taking of some bunkers by a seven man squad. Lucky for combat fans, the Japanese inexplicably come out of the bunkers to allow themselves to be killed in the open. This progresses into a full unit attack on a Japanese camp that begins with the Japanese meeting the American charge and suddenly has the Japanese running with the Yanks blitzing through the camp like hounds after foxes. Either Malick had access to some revisionist facts about the chicken-hearted nature of Japanese warriors on Guadalcanal, much of his combat is unrealistic. Did you know that Japanese in spider-holes would just let you walk up and throw a grenade in?

           MM has several combat scenes. The first is a simplistic assault on an artillery battery. Grenades and gunfire. The big set piece is the taking of the railroad station that is highlighted by a big fight in a maze of concrete blocks (don’t ask) that results in lots of old school deaths with men throwing their arms in the air. Finally there is the fight for the water hole straight from a typical Western. Don’t ask why the Japanese don’t use the high ground to rain death on our heroes. It’s much more entertaining to see them charging in the open to get mowed down. There is nothing you haven’t seen before, but the combat is staged fairly competently. Don’t look for much blood.

FINAL SCORE:
The Thin Red Line    25
Merrill’s Marauders  28
COLOR ANALYSIS: This match-up was a weak one. TTRL was obviously overrated at #4. It appears the selection committee (Rotten Tomatoes) was more impressed with its director than with the finished product. Also, you might have expected with that kind of starting line-up, the performances would have been stronger. Travolta and Clooney hardly played and the rest were mostly off their games. There were a lot of air balls. On the other hand, MM was the scrappy underdog that got lucky with who they got to face in the opening round. It’s old school grind- it-out style was able to overcome the flashy but confused Neo-Realism of Malick.

#100 - The Thin Red Line

BACK STORY: “The Thin Red Line” came out in 1998 (the same year as “Saving Private Ryan”). It is based on the acclaimed novel by James Jones and is a fictional account set in the Battle of Guadalcanal. The film marked the return of legendary director Terence Malick after a twenty year hiatus. He had previously made “Badlands” and “Days of Heaven”, both of which were highly thought of in Hollywood. Many A-list actors were interested in being directed by Malick in whatever movie he made his comeback with. In fact, several major actors worked on the movie and were left on the cutting room floor (e.g. Billy Bob Thornton, Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman ). The movie did not do well at the box office, but did garner seven Oscar nominations ( including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Cinematography ). It won none.


OPENING SCENE: The movie opens with an idyllic scene in a native village where two AWOL soldiers are living in peaceful paradise. We listen to the first installment of the “voiceover” as a disembodied voice comments about nature. Later in the scene, the main character (Witt) sees an American warship off the coast and next thing you know – he’s in the brig.

SUMMARY: We meet most of the characters on board a troop ship headed for Guadalcanal. A pompous general (cameoed woodenly by John Travolta) implies to Col. Tell ( Nick Nolte ) that this is his chance to advance his stagnant career. Sgt. Welsh (Sean Penn) meets with Witt and implies he disagrees with his anti-war philosophy and his going AWOL, but he still likes him. Witt is going to be put in a discipline battalion where he will be a stretcher-bearer. Meanwhile below decks, the soldiers are doing the typical before a landing clichés like complaining about how their officer (Staros) is not a warrior and they always get the shit details. It is this scene that signals the first flaw in the movie. This is supposed to be August in the South Pacific and below deck in a poorly ventilated troop ship and yet no one is sweating! (I will come back to this theme of how the characters react to the environment in future movie reviews. Or more simply, are they sweating when they should be?)

The landing via Higgins boats is unopposed and the men head inland. Here the viewer becomes aware that Malick is very interested in shots of nature and we will have to put up with the pretentious and sometimes indecipherable voiceover throughout the movie. The men are still not sweating!

The core of the movie involves an assault on a hill that has several hidden bunkers that have clear fields of fire. The first attempt ends up with the unit being pinned down after suffering severe casualties. The assault is shown with appropriate graphic violence and realistically portrays the “fog of war”. Malick develops the theme that war causes men to crack and do things that violate humanity. He also does a good job depicting the randomness of war as some men are hit and others are not. Sgt. Keck pulls the pin on a grenade then accidentally drops it and is mortally wounded.


There is a command crisis as Tell insists on taking the hill immediately at any cost while the company commander Staros insists it’s a suicide mission and refuses to order the attack. Tell backs down and allows a flanking attack. A patrol of volunteers ( including the deserter Witt who has begged to return to the unit ) goes after the main bunker. The tactics portrayed are realistic with artillery fire called in first and then grenades thrown through sight holes. Americans kill prisoners (which definitely happens in combat especially when there is racism involved).

Tell arrives and is excited about the victory, but wants more and insists on pushing on even after being informed that the men are suffering from lack of water. At one point Tell says “The only time to worry about a soldier is when he stops bitching”. The audience is meant to feel that Tell is an insensitive jerk, but if you think about it he is right. You should not give up the momentum and it’s a leader’s job to insist on doing the right thing even if the men want to rest.

The attack reaches the Japanese camp where at first the Japanese meet it with a frontal attack which inexplicably quickly turns into the Japanese running away. The Americans rampage through the camp with the Japanese putting up little fight. Most of them are so delirious they cannot even commit suicide. This flies in the face of the standard view of the fanatical Japanese soldiers.

After the battle, Tell relieves Staros from command because he is too soft and cares about his men too much. Again, we sympathize with Staros, but have to admit Tell is right. The men are enjoying R and R including booze in bottles ( no “jungle juice” for them ) and the amazing absence of critters like mosquitoes. Malick’s Guadalcanal is a tropical paradise with no rain where you can snooze in the lush grass.

One character gets to have flashbacks about his lovely wife. As though it’s not obvious enough what is going to happen, he even comments to a friend “I haven’t touched another woman”. Cliché/Spoiler Alert: guess what his wife has to tell him in her next letter?

Returning to battle, we find the unit wading in a river under the command of a new officer who is clearly in over his head ( not literally ). When there is suspicion that they might be wading into an ambush, Witt volunteers to scout ahead. Witt runs into a large Japanese force and proceeds to lead them away in scene similar to the “Platoon” scene where Elias is killed. Witt does not get to die Christ-like, however. Later, we see the obligatory burial scene with the stoical mates saying goodbye to the deserter/pacifist who had morphed into a heroic warrior.

THE FINAL SCENE: Malick bookends his stunt cameos with George Clooney arriving as the new Captain and giving your standard pep talk. The men re-embark and the battle is over for them and for us.

RATINGS:

Realism – 5

Acting – 6 ( some embarrassing performances )

Action - 7 (some good combat scenes)

Accuracy – 5

Plot - 8 (it is based on a great novel)

Overall - 5

WOULD CHICKS DIG IT?:   My wife hated this movie. She sighed through the entire length and could not wait for it to end.

CRITIQUE: Most movie critics loved this movie when it came out. They had been waiting for twenty years for a Malick product and refused to be disappointed. It seems every male actor wanted in on the project and when Malick would tell them to wander around and gaze at the sea ( as he did with Travolta in his big scene ) they did not question the “genius”. The Oscar nominating committee must have been very impressed with cinematography that managed to make Guadalcanal into a tourist destination. Some lucky cameraman was paid to get numerous shots of flora and fauna, especially looking upward. And then there are the voice-overs which are sometimes character’s voices ( often unidentifiable ) and sometimes a more generic sentiment. This may be inspired film-making but it just looks and sounds pretentious to the average war movie buff.

The main fault of the movie ( and any bad war movie ) is lack of realism. Malick may be arguing that the Battle of Guadalcanal was evil man versus good environment, but any veteran of the campaign would support the view that the environment was almost as big a villain as the Japanese. To make a film set on a tropical island and not show the pests, the rain and mud, and the heat is laughable.

Several of the characters do not behave realistically. Witt goes from pacifist to gung-ho with no explanation why. Welsh is a tough guy, yet he volunteers to assist a malingerer back to the rear at a critical moment in the battle, but later he makes a suicidal dash into no man’s land to help a dying soldier.

The assault on the bunker is well done, but the following attack on the camp strains credulity as the Japanese behave against type. Is Malick being a revisionist? Nothing I have read suggests the fanaticism of Japanese soldiers has been inaccurately depicted by military historians.

ACCURACY:

This movie was not meant to be a documentary about the Battle of Guadalcanal, but since the movie-going public often gets its history from Hollywood it is a shame that the movie gives an inaccurate take on the battle. The unit arrives on the first day of the battle and moves into the interior to assault the hill. This is contrary to the flow of the actual battle. Guadalcanal was mainly a defensive battle in the early stages. The landing was unopposed, the Americans seized the airfield and then had to hold it against several banzai-type assaults. The movie plays loose with chronology by skipping the defensive phase and moving to the offensive.

Although we cannot demand that Malick teach the Battle of Guadalcanal through his film, we can demand that he get the soldiers’ experience right. The biggest flaw of the movie is to gloss over the terrible hardships the men went through. Guadalcanal was a tropical hell, not a tropical paradise. When men broke down on Guadalcanal it was usually due to the living conditions, not the combat. A famous phrase associated with the battle was “One more Marine reporting, St. Peter. I’ve served my term in Hell”.

CONCLUSION: Because I am in the opening stage of my journey through the greatest war movies, it is premature to offer an opinion on whether “The Thin Red Line” belongs on the list. I will be watching some movies that did not make the list as part of my “Should it have made the cut?” blogs which will basically come down to whether other movies are better than “The Thin Red Line”. However, I feel it is safe at this point to say that this movie is a dubious inclusion on the list. For instance, just off the top of my head, I would argue that “Enemy at the Gates” is a superior war film.

Next up:  #99 - They Were Expendable