A very good movie

When this movie was released, there was a pretty good buzz about it so I thought I should check it out. Back in those days, I didn't know who was Terrence Malick and haven't heard about the legends surrounding him but I sure loved this movie. I must have been 18-19 years old and I had never seen something like that, this mix of metaphysics and war and I was quite blown-away. Fast-forward 15 years later and I though it was really time for a re-watch. In the mean time, I have seen all the movies directed by Malick and I have read a lot about the crazy stuff about this guy. The 2nd time around, even though it didn't completely amaze me, I still thoroughly enjoyed this movie. Basically, in spite of the poetic tone and metaphysics involved, it is still his most straight-forward and accessible movie to date. Indeed, most of the movie is about the battle of Guadalcanal and it was and is one of the best depictions of war I have ever seen. One thing that really impressed me is the way it keeps switching between characters and I thought it really made sense since war is a confused mess not involving one macho hero but a whole bunch of dudes trying not to get killed. With this switching of characters, you can also try to spot all the familiar actors and there was a whole bunch of them (Jim Caviezel, Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas, Ben Chaplin, John Cusack, Adrien Brody, John C. Reilly, Woody Harrelson, Miranda Otto, Jared Leto, John Travolta, George Clooney, Nick Stahl, Thomas Jane, John Savage, Tim Blake Nelson). Out of all of all those guys, Jim Caviezel, a complete unknown at the time, managed to outclass everyone, even the great Sean Penn and Malick became so infatuated in his awesome performance and the character he created that a good chunk of the movie was devoted to him when it wasn't supposed to be the case. It is actually impressive that the movie was really well structured since Malick didn't follow the book at all, didn't follow the script either and spent at least 3 months shooting hours and hours of footage. When it was released, even though it was heralded, it was still overlooked mostly because the same year, Spielberg released the much more conventional and far less superior 'Saving Private Ryan'. To conclude, I think it is the ultimate poetic war movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

9/10