I think the problem with The Thin Red Line was that most audiences thought it was going to be Saving Private Ryan in the PTO but they got something entirely different than a summer popcorn flick. I liked TTRL.
So did the SF guys who are working in the Southern Philippines - they've taken to seeding their perimeters with coconuts and then centering the coconut in a claymore's kill zone: the MILF assault teams invariably run into a coconut as they try to infiltrate our perimeter, and then it's just a case of waiting until they're all clustered around the nut staring at it, waxing philosophical about why they're there and what war's about, before firing the mine and putting them out of their misery.