 | A true masterpiece!
rating: 5
No need to rehash plot points, but suffice it to say that The Big Red One - in all it's restored glory as Fuller intended - is a true masterpiece. One of the best WWII films ever made, with heartfelt performances and great action. Watching Mark Hammill empty a clip into the german soldier who took cover in the oven towards the end is one of the most chilling scenes in movie history - showing the reality of war and how brutal an affair it always is.
Disregard the idiotic complaints here...they are obviously written by kids with no appreciation for real film making. "Too long?" laughable. And for those who didn't find it believable, reality often is stranger than fiction - everything in the film is based on Fuller's own experiences.
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Fuller rocks
rating: 4
Having seen the original version of Sam Fuller's The Big Red One, years ago, on television, I could see glimmers of something far grander, but did not know what it could be, and given the callowness of my youth, even had I known what was missing, I could not have mentally interpolated back what the studio that financed the film, Lorimar, had cut. Fuller was basically a B film auteur, having made his reputation on 1950s and 1960s B war films (The Steel Helmet, Merrill's Marauders), and the famous- or infamous, Shock Corridor, yet The Big Red One, which was a fictionalization of his real World War Two experiences with the First Infantry Division of the U.S. Army, was, even in its bowdlerized version, considered his masterpiece. And it's a good solid war film. However, The Reconstruction version, adding in over forty-seven minutes on this two disk DVD version, is a truly great war film, and ranks only below Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line and Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now as the greatest war film ever made. I would rank it with Regeneration, Patton, and Full Metal Jacket as the head of the next tier of war films. However, unlike Coppola's expanded Apocalypse Now Redux DVD version, with its questionable reinstatement of some bloated and unnecessary scenes, all of the restored scenes in the restored version of Fuller's film only enhance this film's narrative and characterization.
The tale is straightforward, and told from a GI's perspective, rather than from some omniscient eye in the sky. It is lean, filled with little moments, shorn of much visual poesy, yet, despite that, it is very poetic, albeit in totally different ways than the films of Malick and Coppola, which were self-conscious art films, in the best sense of the word. As in all of Fuller's war films, we know these men from just a few brushstrokes, but they are not stereotypes, like the ridiculously banal grunts in Steven Spielberg's ridiculous schlocksterpiece Saving Private Ryan. The main characters are five Americans and one German. The leader of the Americans is an unnamed sergeant (although he is sometimes called Possum) who starts the film, and ends World War One, killing a surrendering German soldier with his knife, four hours after the Armistice, and the violation of that code of war haunts him ever after. The scene, shot in black and white, and highlighted by a shell-shocked horse's attack on Marvin, under a large crucifix, is beautifully wrought, acted, and written, and sets the film's tone about the enduring irrationality and absurdity of war without having to delve into comedy like M*A*S*H or Catch-22 do.... All of this, plus the eye level view of a grunt, make this film something special. And, unlike Oliver Stone, Fuller does not need to wave his political banner in a viewer's face. Also, Lee Marvin is simply fantastic- this is his greatest role, and he should have won an Oscar for it, even though Hollywood would never honor a man like Fuller. Compared to Tom Hanks' sergeant in Spielberg's garbage, Marvin's is the kind of man men would follow into battle, and die for. The reconstructed film opens with the quote, `This is fictional life based on factual death,' and ends with an epitaph for Fuller. Never has a film's epigraph been more on target, nor more poignant. The Big Red One: The Reconstruction will be de rigueur viewing for war film buffs as long as films are watched. Who needs an Oscar with that sort of legacy?
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The Big Borrrring One
rating: 1
This movie SUCKED Lee Marvin leading a bunch dopey looking GIs ! It was confusing to follow . The Longest Day was cool but this movie with Marvin dressed as a arab in a German hospial . The movie was foolish from beginning to end !
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A Solid WWII Movie Which Went From Good To Very Good
rating: 4
This "reconstructed" DVD, a version that came out several years ago, adding 49 minutes to the original 1980 movie is a very good one. The "old" version was good,too, but this newer version makes the film even better.
For men - and that's who will primarily watch this movie because it's a guy's flick with no romance and no women leads - this keeps the action coming, but without overdoing it. You can different kinds of action scenes, too, not just people shooting at one another.
I also appreciated the photography. It's a good visual movie. The added footage looked sharper and clearer than the previously shown, but either way it was nicely filmed and directed. Of course, the director is the famous Sam Fuller, who did a number of tough film noirs, among other things.
Speaking of tough, the person who makes this movie a notch above average is Lee Marvin. He is just excellent as the tough-on-the-outside-but-soft-hearted underneath commanding officer, known only as "The Sergeant." With his deep voice and weathered face, The language was much milder in here than you find in more modern films, although it can be crude in a few spots. There are no f-words, for example.
The story with narration by one of the soldiers, tells of Marvin and his handful of men who travel and do battle from North Africa to Sicily, then Italy, the beaches of Normandy on D- Day and into Germany in addition to a few other memorable stops such as "an insane asylum."
It's long, but I never found it boring and the men never stay too long in one spot.
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Unwatchable!
rating: 1
Any resemblance between BRO and WW2 is merely in the uniforms.
Do you want to see Lee Marvin kissed on the mouth multiple times by a German military doctor who has a childish tattoo of a nude man on chest? Didn't think so. And the really odd thing is that Marvin doesn't object until at least the second kiss. Was his character undecided whether he liked it?
I guess this is Fuller's idea of a good war movie or at least a good joke on the rest of us. If war is hell, then watching this movie is the closest thing to hell. And I don't mean that in a "Saving Private Ryan" way.
If you make the mistake of buying this movie and watch the first few scenes, don't torture yourself by hoping it will get better. Hit eject and move on.
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