The Thin Red Line

The only thing crazier than how many recognizable actors there are in this movie is how many had their scenes cut completely during the editing process, including Martin Sheen, Gary Oldman, and Mickey Rourke. War movies have a funny away of apparently attracting attention from everyone in the business, as The Thin Red Line was released the same year as Saving Private Ryan, which itself has an extensive and extremely famous cast. I thought it was less distracting here though, except for the scene near the end where George Clooney shows up to give a speech than Sean Penn narrates over.

The Thin Red Line is overall a more painterly and less action-oriented war film than Ryan, focusing more on the internal lives of the soldiers than the combat they take part in. I think they're actually pretty good companion films. Ryan is in the European theater and wears its heart on its sleeve, Line is in the Pacific and a bit more introspective and detached. Ryan begins with one of the most famous war scenes ever made, a gigantic, loud, violent slaughter. Line begins with a soldier played by Jim Caviezel resting on an island with some natives, and there's a full 45 minutes before anyone is in real danger. They're both gorgeous movies, Ryan with its color correction and perfectly chaotic action, Line with its more natural cinematography and focus on wildlife, and intricately pieced together battle scenes.

This is the first movie by Terrence Malick that I've seen (hey, he's only made five), and I was very impressed by his work, though I'm not sure how much I'd like his other stuff. The way intense fighting punctuates and breaks up the long periods of slow moving or still scenery with minimal dialogue creates an intriguing contrast, but a film of nothing but the latter might be tough to handle. Of course, I have no idea if any of his other movies are like that, other than to say I get the impression that that's what The Tree of Life might resemble.

In any case, The Thin Red Line is not a perfect war movie, but I do think it is a great one. There are many brilliant and captivating scenes, and even when things slow down, it's still very nice to look at. If there's one viable criticism, it does seem a bit scattered at times, as it sort of lacks a central figure, and instead bounces from soldier to soldier, letting them narrate their thoughts in turn. The performances are generally very good, even if none of them are terribly substantial. John C. Reilly gets what I think is a single scene of dialogue, and certain characters will pop in at a certain point and then just disappear completely, like the parts played by John Cusack and John Travolta. Nick Nolte might have the most dialogue as an impassioned Lieutenant Colonel, though Penn and Caviezel probably have the biggest parts from a screen time perspective.

It's hard to say whether the somewhat disjointed nature of the film is entirely intentional, or a result of Malick having to trim about 40% of his original cut, or if the full thing was even worse with the additional characters. I didn't really mind the movie being this way, because it was an engrossing experience while watching it. It does result in a slight feeling of dissatisfaction though, especially in retrospect, not having a real central plot to grasp onto. I guess war though can be a pretty existential experience, and this is about as existential as war movies can get. In that way, it's sort of a masterpiece.

The Punisher

I watched The Punisher knowing it didn't have a good reputation, but still hoping it would be a decent revenge movie. Unfortunately, the decent revenge stuff was hampered by a hard-to-like protagonist and one of the worst initial premises I've ever seen in a film. The original Punisher comic started with a normal guy named Frank Castle's family getting killed after they witness a gang execution, and him taking the law into his own hands. Not terribly brilliant, but it works. What happens in the movie does not work. Castle is an ex-soldier and undercover FBI agent, and after a gun deal he oversees goes south and a dumb criminal gets killed, his dad played by John Travolta (who's completely unconvincing as a ruthless gangster) decides to take it out Frank and his entire family. This obviously makes no sense since he was hardly responsible for what happened and killing a lawman and his extended family would result in a huge crackdown from the government, though fortunately for him it never happens for no reason and Frank Castle has to... yep, take the law into his own hands.

I could go on about how terrible this opening is, but there are other things I have to cover like how Frank's neighbors in his new slum apartment are annoying and add little to the story, how Frank's kind of a giant dick who pathologically lies to his son (before he dies) and gets a bit too sadistic with his actions when he claims to be only punishing criminals rather than getting revenge, and how inept everyone Travolta sends after our less-than-intrepid hero is. Hired assassins announce their intentions and show up at his heavily fortified apartment completely unarmed, packs of goons fail to make sure he's dead (which guarantees he'll survive) and search for him effectively, if you don't pay attention it might be a pretty enjoyable action movie, but once you do it falls apart like it was held together with chewing gum.

I did enjoy the eventual punishment for the most part, although it was hard to stomach what happens to Travolta's wife with Castle not being aware that she probably deserves it and essentially doing to the bad guys exactly what they did to him. I've been watching Hung and like Thomas Jane quite a bit on that, but he can't do a whole lot with what he has here. He was given a tough road to hoe with the material, and try as he might he just can't make Frank likable. Really, the cast isn't terrible at all, but nobody in the film comes off very well. You have to lay the blame on the director and writers. They changed the details of the origin for no reason and definitely for the worse, and fail to make anybody sympathetic on top of that. It wasn't awful, but it really didn't do anything well enough to make it worth seeing.