It's a terrific war yarn, a picture of palpable raw power which manages both Intense intimacy and great scope at the same time.

| Mar 26, 2009

Visually and philosophically, it's Fuller's equivalent of Kurosawa's Kagemusha, although Fuller's film is more complex, more absurd and more haunted.

| Jun 24, 2006

Although these are the stock characters of war drama - the sage, grizzled Sarge, the farm boy, the street kid, the nice guy who doesn't want to kill anyone and the witness - Fuller's are particularly credible ordinary people.

| Original Score: 5/5 | May 11, 2005

'The Reconstruction,' which clocks in at 2 hours, 43 minutes, with not a single extraneous frame, elevates the work from a robust genre film to a full-blown epic.

| Original Score: 5/5 | Jan 20, 2005

Even though it has gained more than 45 minutes, it doesn't feel longer. Scenes that were choppy or half-baked are now allowed to play out as Fuller intended.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 10, 2004

The director's gift for bare-knuckles lyricism rescues scene after scene.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Dec 3, 2004

If you don't elect to watch The Big Red One through the lens of Sam Fuller's mystique ... you'll realize that it has been celebrated in ways that essentially make virtues of its flaws.

| Original Score: C | Dec 2, 2004

Alas, the lost version of Samuel Fuller's The Big Red One of 1980 has been found -- reassembled, actually, by the distinguished film critic Richard Schickel -- and it's a lot less than legendary. It isn't even very good.

| Nov 12, 2004

The combination of old-time Hollywood valor and ahead-of-its-time surprises makes this restoration a big event.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Nov 12, 2004

What the movie may lack in Saving Private Ryan-style gloss, it more than makes up for in authenticity, or, in other words, heart.

| Nov 11, 2004

Seven years after Fuller's death, 24 years after its initial, botched release, and almost 60 years after V-E day, The Big Red One is finally here, in a form close to what Fuller intended.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Nov 11, 2004

You must see this film for one unstoppable reason, and that is Lee Marvin.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2004

The Big Red One isn't even Fuller's greatest war film. Of those, I'd rank it fourth -- but that's not half bad.

Full Review | Nov 9, 2004

What we understand, finally, is that the entire war comes down to these five men, because it is their entire war.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 23, 2004

The film's overriding mission is to expose both the inherent absurdity and tragedy of war.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Oct 6, 2004

As the longest and biggest of Fuller's movies, it magnifies the essence -- good and bad -- of his work.

| Oct 6, 2004

One is always aware of the soldiers' sense of isolation even in the midst of battle and of the endlessness of their task. If they survive one battle, their only reward is to be able to fight another.

| May 20, 2003