'The Thin Red Line'

The Thin Red Line was released just five months after Saving Private Ryan in 1998.

They were both very similar. Both set during World War II as the United States was entering very important stages of the two fronts (D-Day on the European campaign and the fight for Guadalcanal in the Pacific). Both were done by high profile directors: Steven Spielberg and Terrence Malick, who chose The Thin Red Line to make his return to directing since Days of Heaven in 1978.

Also, they were loaded with all-star casts, in hindsight. In 1998, I don't think we thought of Matt Damon, John C. Reilly, Jim Caviezel and Adrien Brody as we do today. Still, Tom Hanks, Nick Nolte, Sean Penn, Ed Burns, John Cusack and John Travolta are nothing to sneeze at.

These things happen in Hollywood, it appears quite a bit. Somehow, someway, competing studios start on similar -- if not identical -- film projects. Apparently, there were two Malcolm X biopics (the Denzel Washington one getting finished), two Truman Capote/In Cold Blood biopics (both getting made) and various others through the years. In fact, Malick had talked with a screenwriter about The Elephant Man Joe Merrick until David Lynch released The Elephant Man.

However, I don't think this was a case of different studios making the same film. Adapting The Thin Red Line began almost nine years before its release in 1989. Saving Private Ryan was allegedly developed in 1994. I'm not saying that either director was copycatting the other, but it's beyond coincidence that these two films (169 and 170 minutes each) were released within several months of each other.

Saving Private Ryan gets the headlines, but The Thin Red Line is by far the better film. It doesn't necessarily make you cry or have these big Spielbergian jingoistic, flag-waving scenes. Still, it's better. The battle scenes are way better and more realistic (the first five minutes of Saving Private Ryan, notwithstanding). It's more brutal (and Saving Private Ryan is no picnic).

It's a war film unlike all others. It's battle where inches and feet were maybe all you get in a day. If that. Saving Private Ryan depicted a noble war. The Thin Red Line depicted an unnecessary and inhuman series of acts where neither party are that into participating.

Private Ryan fought to stay with his platoon on that bridge. In The Thin Red Line, Captain Staros disobeys an order, almost courtmarshaled only to be sent to Washington for a desk job and he tells his men that he's happy to be leaving and never coming back.

Which is the real war?