Thin Red Line, to me, was like a dreadfully dull painting in a magnificent frame. Truly beautiful cinematography and visuals, but overwhelmingly ponderous in the pacing of the plot. And who the fuck can tell Adrian Brody apart from Ben Chaplin (or the other two/three similar-looking guys)? You need an Unknown Pretty Boy Guide to tell which guy's doing what.
Now that it's on HBO, I keep thinking maybe I should check it out again, and give it another chance, but then I remember what my wife and I turned to each other and said at the end of it when we rented it: "Well, there's 3 hours we'll never get back".
There are certainly worse movies out there than TRL, but I get irritated at nebulous tone-poem type films, that never seem to get to the fucking point (and when they finally do get to the point, it's something painfully obvious and earnest, like "war is bad, m'kay?").
Malick could have trimmed an hour out of that thing and I wouldn't have missed it. Or, he could have gotten rid of the actors, done some more scenery shots, and narrated a perfectly good nature special (or gotten Michael Palin to do it).
