2 out of 10
 

One of the eternal problems of life is how to ditch an unwanted girlfriend. Now we have the answer! Half an hour of "Thin Red Line" and you can kiss her ass goodbye! Throughout the preview screening of this pretentious and dreary dirge, the audience just kept filing out like wounded from a battlefield.

Packed to the gunnels with the sort of reflective sentimentality that’s made Disney enough money to bankroll the state of Florida almost single-handedly, the entire three hours seems to consist of soldiers whining on like a cracked record about how dreadful war is. Why? Are they knee deep in trench mud? Are they dying of hypothermia in the snowy wasteland of Stalingrad! No! While the rest of the world is being strafed, bombed and gassed, these lazy sods are sitting on the beaches of a tropical paradise, second to none, sex kitten natives tending their every need as they ponder how the War`s botching up their social schedules. And we`re supposed to have sympathy for them ?!?! What an insult to all those who suffered, were injured or died in the War! At one point, the platoon are given a week`s furlough, yet it seems like a year to us, the audience. By the end, you really began to envy the men that had actually got shot on the screen - at least they, unlike you, managed to get out of being associated with this worthless flick.

Even on a technical basis, it`s a disaster zone. Quite apart from lousy camera work turning the breathtaking beauty of the Solomon Islands into an ugly green smudge, the film shows soldiers being shelled and blown to bits, but when the reinforcements advance over the same ground, there`s not so much as a dead squirrel or a golfing divot out of place.

More disturbingly, the film continues the same logical sequence as "Saving Private Ryan" - the hero's have to be shown to be upset at the carnage by beating up and shooting de fenceless prisoners through the head when they win. What sort of morality is that supposed to be teaching us?

In an effort to take this crippled turkey to the skies, 20th Century Fox even threw in some big name (I guess at gunpoint)...and then promptly threw them out again before they had to pay them anything of any consequence - what a con! Neither John Travolta nor George Clooney have more than 5 lines between them for their 30 seconds each on screen.

The only "Thin Red Line" it deserves is one straight through the script.