goose-57 Reviews

Sniper (1993)

A Psychological Drama, NOT an Action Movie

[8/10 · 17 March 2000]

Some guys think that sniper is not good because of the action part of it was not good enough. Well, if you regard it as an action movie, this view point could be quite true as the action part of this movive is not actually exciting. However, I think this is a psychological drama rather than an action one.

The movie mainly told us about the inside of two snipers who definitely had different personalities and different experiences. Tomas Beccket , who was a veteran and had 74 confirmed kills, looked as if he was cold-hearted. However, after Beccket showed his day dream of Montana, we can clearly see his softness inside. It was the cruel war and his partners' sacrifice that made Beccket become so called cold-hearted.

Millar, on the contrary, was a new comer, a green hand, and was even not qualified as a sniper. Billy Zane did quite well to show millar's hesitation and fear when he first tried to "put a bullet through one's heart"(as what Beccket said). What he thought about the actuall suicide mission was that it could be easily accomplished and then he could safely get back and receive the award.

These two guys were quite different in their personalities and I think that the movie had successfully showed the difference and the impact they had to each other due to the difference in their personalities. These two snipers quarreled, suspected each other and finally come to an understanding by the communication and by what they had done to help even to save the other.

Sniper isn't a good action movie but a good psychological one.

The Thin Red Line (1998)

A book or A Movie?

[6/10 · 15 March 2000]

I think thin red line is not a good movie but might be a good book. A movie should mainly use the actor(actress)'s body language including the action, the countenance and so on to express the main idea. This movie didn't make good use of the body language. Instead, there were long long monologues of what the soldier thought about the war, lots of suspicion in mind.

I think it was poorly directed and the script was terrible. I wonder what on earth the director wanted to do by the combination of the fighting scene and the peaceful scene. Only to let us see how bad the war was and how peaceful life they could have enjoyed?

I have watched it twice and I just couldn't get the whole story line. There were too many similar characters. I mean these guys looks so similar that I couldn't even tell who is who. And I think the story itself is not attractive.

Obviously, it is an anti-war film. However the director didn't do well enough to make you feel the horror of the war. Compared to the bloody, horrible and touching 20 mins scene of the landing in Saving Private Ryan, scenes in Thin Red Line are simply not touching enough. At least, Spielberg's twenty-minute-scene really gave me a feeling that I had been right there. It told me how cruel the war could be.