Pretty much half of Hollywood was in this movie. John Travolta, John Cusack, George Clooney, Jared Leto, Woody Harrelson, Sean Penn, Elias Koteas, Nick Nolte…we could go on. Some were at the beginning of their careers, like Ben Chaplin, Jim Caviezel, Nick Stahl, and Miranda Otto. All of them did a great job delivering an anti-war movie that explicitly tells us violent conflict is futile and in fact insane.
It’s well known Terrence Malick despises violence, and John Toll did a bang-up job depicting war as decidedly NOT glamorous. Nature looks great, but often gets destroyed by human conflict. One of the most memorable scenes in cinema history is the American charge on a Japanese army base in the middle of the jungle. You’ll be driven to goosebumps and tears as the cinematography gets a boost from Hans Zimmer’s unbelievable soundtrack, so make sure you have good headphones or speakers.
There’s a lot of violence on show, but none of it even remotely idealized. Japanese soldiers are shown regularly, and even though none get proper speaking roles, all are obviously human and treated as complete equals to the Americans. The Thin Red Line wants to tell us we all live together in nature, and if we insist, we all die together in nature, as well.