Thin Red Line

B

BadDog

Inactive
I'm sorry this post does't have anything directly to do with guns. But I just have to vent a little....just came back from seeing "Thin Red Line" and I am so pissed! I am active duty and so is one of the other people who saw this "film" with me tonight. All four of us had to leave the theatre before the end, We were actualy ashamed to be there!
Here are some of the reasons:
1.)Going AWOL is OK if you have a cause.
2.)It is acceptable to refuse a direct order while under enemy fire.
3.)A good percentage of American fighting men in WWII were (are?) cowards.
4.)The Japanese at Guadalcanal were unnecessarily brutalized by Americans.
This is just a sampling of what you can expect if you pay to see this &%$*. This is the most anti-American thing I have ever encountered. Stay away at all costs. If you have alredy seen it please tell me what you think, I don't think it was just us.
P.S. I went home fondeled my BM AR-15 and put "Patton" in the VCR.
 
My friends saw it, they walked out after an hour- they almost died from boredom, from what they said about it- I'm sure you hit the nail on the head.
 
I was disappointed as well. The movie has an agenda … although I have yet to digest it all. I’ll post more later but I will say this for now. It is shameful the inaccurate light in which this movie portrays the American fighting man. No respect for a generation of heroes who have paid the price for our freedom.
 
I almost started a post on this also but held my tongue. above comments notwithstanding there was no character development, no real plot, & poor/nonexistent dialogue. Plus it is 3 agonizing hours long- It reaaaaallllly SUCKED!!!
olazul
 
Gawd I'm glad you want to talk about this! Took my oldest boy with me, and he wanted to leave about 45 minutes before the end. How was it? The words B O R I N G and T E D I O U S just don't do justice to this movie. My wife was surprised - told me she had heard this movie was expected to rival 'Saving Private Ryan'!? I told her that 'Saving Private Ryan' had an unfair advantage - it had a plot!

I really don't have a problem with the more realistic presentations of war these days (though they did lay the fear / coward examples on pretty darn thick) - I tend to believe John Wayne-type movies did too much to glamorize the hell of war. But gawd - do we really need THREE HOURS OF POETRY to convey the more human side of conflict? NOT! I felt like I had become a clinical expert in free association of the English language. That was some of the most sentimental, confused and rambling dialog I've ever heard in a film. I began wondering if someone had dropped their only copy of the script, and without page numbers they had to guess how it went back together!

And, what a damn shame. Many of the combat scenes were well done. But, if our guys were pinned down for two hours, did the director really need to take two hours to convey that feeling? What a loss for history as well. They had a chance to educate a new generation about the strategic importance of Guadalcanal, the timing of the conflict so close to the raids on Pearl Harbor, and the importance of the American victory.

Whenever I see film done so poorly about such an important topic I feel especially cheated. Not just for the money, but more so for the lost opportunity of a great film.

Glad I could get this one off my chest. Adios.

ps - run a search for 'Guadalcanal' in Yahoo, Infoseek or such for some sources regarding the real story of this conflict. (I had posted a URL, but it was so long it seemed to be causing a bug in the UBB code.)

[This message has been edited by Jeff Thomas (edited 01-19-99).]
 
i glad y'all posted your impressions of the movie. i don't go to the theater to see movies anymore, usually wait for the videos.

but from what y'all said i won't be renting that one when it comes out.

thanks again for the review.

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fiat justitia
 
Just came back from seeing the movie, first time i've gone to a movie in years. the movie was disappointing and did a disservice to James Jones fine novel. I'm still trying to figure where some of the characters came from. Also many inaccuracies, well dressed japanese soldiers in the movie when the japanese garrison on the island was starving and disease ridden. The film showed many Japanese prisoners taken, not so during the actual campaign.
As an aside, I saw a TV show on the movie on the cable History Channel and they showed interviews with some of the actors. John Cusack made a statement that it was OK to be patriotic in WW 2 but not today. On the same program they had Lt Col Hackworth ( Remember Him) commenting on the scene where the Captain tells the Colonel that he will not follow orders, Hackworth said this happened to him in Nam and he went along with the Captains suggestion. Often the junior officers had a better understanding of the situation and could better judge how to accomplish the mission.
The movie was disjointed and sometimes hard to follow, and a lot of ends were left hanging. I guess I won't be going back to the movies unless there is a big change in the politics of Hollywood.


[This message has been edited by K80Geoff (edited 01-20-99).]
 
Very good, I won't waste my time going to see this movie then. I had a feeling that when I saw Sean Penn was in it, that it was going to be a farter. Now THERE is a guy with an agenda. Saw him in an interview with Charley Rose. What a Marxist.
 
What a piece of crap...although the acting was first rate, the cast was all-star, and the cinematography was beautiful.....it stunk up the place.

I too was anxiously awaiting the opening of the movie and ruched out to see it at my earliest convienence. How do I get my money back?

I think they wanted to make the three hour running time seem only slightly shorter than the actual battle itself. It was painfully long. I felt like walking out, but kept hoping it would get better. Besides I wanted to get my moneys worth.

I'm sure that the events portrayed did in fact occur; In any war, I would think that such behavoir would be present....But not at the scale in which it was shown in the film.....

Bottom line...this piece of crap will probaly win truckload of awards for its "honest" view on American history.....

I will now reflect as the camera pans aimlessly about......I am the grass, leaninging into the strong wind. Yearing to reach the blue sky which seems so out of reach above me. I lean, I bow, am I, am I not.......this is the kind of crap you'll have to endure if you decide to see this flick after being duly warned.
 
RONIN!!!!
a movie about expensive cars chasing,bumping around and a movie about the EMPTY ATTACHE CASE!!! my wife and i hate it, asking ourselves in the end of the movie," That's it????"

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REY MARIANO
 
Ronin was a great movie. great car chases, innocent people dying, like it happens in real shoot outs. the only probelm is what the *explative* is in the case.
 
Ronin,

Cool movie and want that Audi S8

[This message has been edited by JG (edited 01-20-99).]
 
Compared to what horse manure is served-up at the movies, overall, RONIN was pretty darn good. You have to suspend belief to enjoy anything nowadays(just look at the nonsense in the gun magazines). If you expect to see "training film" level accuracy in the movies, you need to have your reality switch checked.

Getting back to RONIN, the car chases are much better than anything I remember since BULLIT, the look on the actor's faces when they were actually driving is a hoot(I almost think there was some genuine concern for safety on their faces), and the overall tone of the movie (professional paranoia) was good.

A friend of mine that was in the Agency for many, many years said that the tone of the movie really hit home with him. He said he hasn't seen such an accurate portrayal of this "mood" done by hollywood since the old movies like the Ipcress File, and so on.

And, we could all benefit from driving an Audi S8 with nitrous and high flow injectors for a little while.....
 
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