The Big Red One

I just watched The Big Red One off cable. I remember having seen this movie long ago and so I wanted to see it again and see what I thought about it now.

I find it interesting that the level of violence in a war movie only garners a PG rating. While certainly not as graphic Saving Private Ryan or other modern movies, it is still surprising.

The story was an interesting overview of the Second World War in Europe. It stretched from the invasion of North Africa to Sicily to the Italian mainland to D-Day to Belgium to a concentration in Czechoslovakia.

The most surprising aspect of the movie was that one of the stars of the movie was none other than Luke Skywalker himself, Mark Hamill.

I think one of the better anti-war statements ever made in film is the following lines:
[The troop stops before a memorial]
Johnson: Would you look at how fast they put the names of all our guys who got killed?
The Sergeant: That's a World War One memorial.
Johnson: But the names are the same.
The Sergeant: They always are.

On my scale of 1-100, I rate this movie a 68.

For a complete list of my ratings go to Mike's Movie Ratings .