The original release of "The Big Red One" was a highly compromised version of the film that never really felt like a film by Samuel Fuller. It's probably fair to say that a lot of Fuller's view of the world was shaped by his experiences in WWII, so seeing what the war really looked like from his perspective is a tantalizing prospect. The reconstructed version of "The Big Red One" finally feels like Fuller's vision of the war. It's an episodic tour of WWII from the perspective of an infantry squad led by veteran sergeant Lee Marvin and populated by a group of some of the most promising young actors of the early 80s ... Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine (in…

Such ambition on a budget. The more I think about it the more impressed I am with what I see. No mere prep for battle, battle, then process battle movie. Instead, the US 1st Infantry Division globe trots from North Africa all the way through World War ll to Czechoslovakia. As vast as this scope is, the camera never strays far from the faces of the sergeant and his unit, keeping this a close, personal experience. Maybe having money constraints is just the ticket, because it forces creativity and there is plenty of it here. There are some nice little touches when it comes to storytelling; a watch awash in red, showing the interminable length of time passing on Omaha…

The original release of "The Big Red One" was a highly compromised version of the film that never really felt like a film by Samuel Fuller. It's probably fair to say that a lot of Fuller's view of the world was shaped by his experiences in WWII, so seeing what the war really looked like from his perspective is a tantalizing prospect. The reconstructed version of "The Big Red One" finally feels like Fuller's vision of the war. It's an episodic tour of WWII from the perspective of an infantry squad led by veteran sergeant Lee Marvin and populated by a group of some of the most promising young actors of the early 80s ... Mark Hamill, Robert Carradine (in…

An absurdist take on war that only someone who had been to war could create. The version I saw wasn't the 2004 reconstruction, so I know there was a lot of footage I haven't seen. Perhaps that would make the film better, but I like how disjointed it is. The movie is truly bizarre and twisted, and once you get into the groove, its episodic nature really begins to work.

When I saw the scene where the Americans and French are killing each other, but then a cease-fire is called and the French surrender (as they always do; rimshot), and all the soldiers embrace. It's a ridiculous scene when you consider that one side just killed the friends and brothers…

Roger Ebert said in his review of this movie that THE BIG RED ONE is "one of the most expensive B-pictures ever made...'A' war movies are about War, but 'B' war movies are about soldiers." Therein lies the problem with so many A-level war films. Fuller's biggest foray war movies never gets too big for its britches the way so many war movies often do. Fuller is a spinner of pulp yarns first and foremost, and he keeps that spirit in tact here, even though he was also making his most personal film. Robert Carradine acts as Fuller's cypher, chomping a cigar the way Fuller was known to do, and the experiences of his squadron reflect Fuller's own when he…