Rank these War movies
Saving Private Ryan
The Thin Red Line
We Were Soldiers
Platoon
Full Metal Jacket
Apocalypse Now
Black Hawk Down
The Hurt Locker
Casualties of War
Hamburger Hill
Ok, I'll bite:
BHD (rated highests because it does a great job depicting the battle and combat without these interludes for philosophical discussion, which wouldn't happen during a battle! - intense throughout!)
SPR (only lower for some of the melodrama between battles, but battles themselves are probably the best ever made)
Platoon (great depiction of the war despite some issues with the infighting drama, but I would put this higher if I felt I could!)
Hamburger Hill (personal love for it, so possibly rated too high by me, but I don't care!)
We Were Soldiers (great battle scenes, but I enjoy the films above more)
FMJ
Hurt Locker (ranked here only because of inaccuracies throughout - great film which was tense as hell!)
Apoc Now (also not really a war film at all, but a good, albeit slow, movie)
Casualties of War (not a bad film, just my personal least favorite of the rest as I own all of the ones above)
Thin Red Line (not a war film and I must say I found it to be quite boring and tedious, but that's just my opinion)
Cheers mate!
How are Thin Red Line and Apocalypse Now not war movies?
shareIn my opinion, both are movies with a war as a backdrop, but they aren't really about the soldiers. TRL is a movie about existentialism, but not really at all about soldiers. Yes, it was supposed to be about the mind and how combat affects the mind, but it really doesn't put the soldiers through much of anything to justify that. Apoc is similar but is closer to a war film. Really, though, both are stories that take place in a war zone, but they really don't reflect what war is like for the soldiers in any realistic way (except for the air assault in Apoc).
It is like saying MASH (movie, not tv show) is a football movie. Yes, a serious amount of time is dedicated to a football game in the film, but it is not a sports movie.
Note, just my opinions.
I semi agree with your description of TRL—it seems like more than just a war movie. But it is definitely about the soldiers and their experience, in part, and a very valid part at that.
Same with Apocalypse Now—but focused on Sheen and Brando with the other characters as a sort of back drop, also more than just a war movie.
tph, you make very good points. However, I knew several combat vets, and they laugh at movies like TRL. The issue is that those characters are nothing like soldiers or other combat vets. Plus, historically, we were very invested in that war, particularly in the Pacific, due to the attack at Pearl Harbor, but every soldier in this movie was already disillusioned at the start of the war. There was no bravado, very little brotherhood, and while vets have respect for movies like SPR, Platoon, and BHD, they laugh at attempts like TRL to ignore how soldiers really act. That is why I rate it so low. It may be a good movie (I personally found it boring), but it fails to represent soldiers.
shareI think you might be right. TRL doesn’t really show a realistic shade of what it is to be a soldier. But I think it tried, in its own way. Ended up being more impressionist and dream-like in the end.
I recommend reading the novel, which was written by a veteran of the Guadalcanal campaign. It provides an incredibly rich view of the soldiers as individuals dealing with the situation in their own ways. The film definitely used the novel as a launching point, but strayed into a different form of expression.
Both works compliment each other, and make a fuller whole (IMO).
I'll have to try that at some point, though I think I did many years ago...
shareThin Red Line is not a very good film, in my opinion, but part of that is because I dislike the expository narration in Terrence Malick films.
My grandmother was a nurse on a medical ship at Guadalcanal. It was a hellish battle to be sure.
One thing in the film that I couldn't understand was why the soldiers acted like they had been in battle before they got there. Almost none of the boys in those ranks would have been in combat, but they acted like soldiers half way into a year hitch in Viet Nam.