The Thin Red Line Blu-ray Review

• 10th May 2011

The Thin Red Line suffered in a similar way that The Shawshank Redemption did, by having it’s thunder stolen by bigger films (in this case, Shakespeare in Love and Saving Private Ryan). In fact, these three films were nominated at the Oscars along with Life is Beautiful (another WWII drama) and Elizabeth (twining that with Shakespeare in Love) and it was Mallick’s film that came away empty handed. Eh?

Looking at the sound and visual quality, the cinematography, the performances, the direction and the music it is mind-boggling as to how this came about? Was Saving Private Ryan really that great after the opening sequence? It was good sure, but The Thin Red Line is persistently excellent from start to finish.

Some films have cameo spots from a lot of famous actors that can make it distracting to a film, The Thin Red Line was accused of this, but I think for the most part they add edge to the film. Whether it’s Nick Nolte (one of the best parts) arguing with Elias Koteas (also one of the best) about whether or not to carry out a mission; or listening to Sean Penn talk wise with, then newcomer, Jim Caviezel, the dialogue takes over the face of the actor. You can also spot the likes of John C Reilly; Thomas Jane; John Travolta and George Clooney among others putting in small appearances. Clooney’s probably stands out the most as maybe pointless, but the speech he gives is relevant, even if our attention is on another actor.

Finally we get some extras treatment on our shores with several nice interviews discussing working on the film from the editors to the actors.  With such a huge cast it may have been nice to get even more of the names involved. There is also a commentary by some of the crew – which includes cinematographer, John Toll who parlays what Mallick had in mind while shooting.

The only annoyance (and it is a major one) is the fact that although we get a handful of outtakes (including a scene with Mickey Rourke) we never get a great amount of deleted footage. There is a bigger cut of this film out there somewhere and with names like Gary Oldman and Bill Pullman, yet we don’t get it here.  Perhaps one day we will get a longer cut, perhaps not. But for now this is the first edition of this film worth buying if you are looking for extras.

Steven Hurst