The Thin Red Line (1998 film)

The Thin Red Line is a 1998 American ensemble epic war film written and directed by Terrence Malick. Based on the novel by James Jones, it tells a fictionalized version of the Battle of Mount Austen, which was part of the Guadalcanal Campaign in the Pacific Theater of World War II. It portrays soldiers of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division, played by Sean Penn, Jim Caviezel, Nick Nolte, Elias Koteas and Ben Chaplin. Although the title may seem to refer to a line from Rudyard Kiplings poem Tommy, from BarrackRoom Ballads, in which he calls foot soldiers the thin red line of heroes, referring to the stand of the 93rd Regiment in the Battle of Balaclava of the Crimean War, it is in reality a quote from James Jones book which reads they discover the thin red line that divides the sane from the mad... and the living from the dead...

U.S. Army Private Witt Jim Caviezel goes AWOL from his unit and lives among the easygoing and seemingly carefree Melanesian natives in the South Pacific. He is found and imprisoned on a troop carrier by his company First Sergeant, Welsh Sean Penn, who notices Witts indifference to the war. The men of C Company, 1st Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry Division have been brought to Guadalcanal as reinforcements in the campaign to secure Henderson Field and seize the island from the Japanese. As they wait in the holds of a Navy transport, they contemplate their lives and the impending invasion. On deck, battalion commander Lieutenant Colonel Tall Nick Nolte talks with his commanding officer, Brigadier General Quintard John Travolta about the invasion and its importance. Talls voiceover reveals that he has been passed over for promotion and this battle may be his last chance to command a victorious operation.C Company lands on Guadalcanal unopposed and marches to the interior of the island, encountering natives and evidence of the Japanese presence and tactics the mutilated corpses of intercepted Marine and Ranger scouts. They arrive near Hill 210, a key Japanese position. The Japanese have placed a wellhidden bunker housing several machine guns at the top of the hill, giving them a full view of the valley below. Any force attempting to climb the hill will be easily cut down by machinegun fire and mortar rounds. ........

Source: Wikipedia