I recently watched The Thin Red Line. Not the new, 1998 version however; accidentally picked up the 1964 black and white picture. The story line and plot going on in the movie is very hard to understand, and I read very different from the book The Thin Red Line, but I got the main gist of it.

             The main character in the movie is a very young solider and the sergeant of the company they are in. The movie starts off on a naval ship and the sergeant is yelling at the solider because he needs to finish his orders. The Japanese attack the ship and the next day are found on land. When they arrive, the soldier kills the first Japanese in the company. He is shocked at himself, and after ravaging the mans body, he breaks down and cries. Everyone tries to comfort him, but it is as if the man has gone insane. He recovers soon however, or so it seems. The soldier is told that the man he killed is just like a piece of meat, and his number has come up. The soldier then has a nightmare about when his number will come up. The soldier is now scared of dying, after the brief fight with the Japanese soldier earlier.

             The movie goes on, with some more encounters with Japanese soldiers. The young solider disobey his orders many times. He thinks that he will be the safe one, because he is "thinking for himself" and not doing what everyone else is doing. The sergeant yells at him, and tells him to watch out. The soldier becomes one of the very good soldiers however, almost by disobeying everyone"s commands. The movie ends with the sergeant dying for the soldier, and when the soldier asks why he replies "because I was stupid." The sergeant who has always hated the soldier actually dies for him in the end.

             The main purpose I got out of the movie was the quote; "There is a thin red line between the sane and the insane." That is refereed mainly to war I am guessing. When you are out there fighting you have no time to think about other soldiers, your enemy"s.