The Line

Based on the true story of a Vietnam deserter who, after several suicide attempts in the army stockade, provokes a guard into killing him. As he crosses one line, fellow prisoners cross another, literally and metaphorically, by stepping out of parade in protest, and get life sentences for mutiny. Despite some powerful performances (Sullivan is outstanding as the senior stockade NCO), the film is top-heavy with a script whose painful honesty isn't always balanced: the strong story is over-compressed, notably in the media/civilian demonstration shit-storm that comes awkwardly out of nowhere into the closed world of the stockade. Well done up to a point and uncompromisingly relentless, but it makes you realise how good Costa-Gavras is at this kind of thing.