Saving Private Ryan

Rating:
Summary: Terrible & trite is right
Review: Thankfully someone sees the absurdism in this film. I'm not able to give my full opinion on how terrible this film is because amazon is a notorious censor & does not like "bad words". Just read the glowing reviews & see what they say... "We must remember" & "those men fought for us, etc..." Yes that may be true but ol' Steve did not have to make a CLICHEFEST OF A FILM ABOUT IT! Simply agreeing with one's sentiment does not make for good art. There is not one thing unique about this film at all. Zero. Nada. One might argue "but it has great special effects & shows us what it was like, yadda yadda yadda but #1 special effects don't make for a good movie. They don't change the shallow & trite script one bit. And #2 if all I wanted was a recreation I'd watch a documentary. This film is about being a "good person" rather than smart one. This is a movie for dumb people to watch and think is deep. Hence why Steve is the WORST director. Heck, even Ed Wood KNEW his films were bad. Steve is so pretentious that he actually thinks he's making a deep statement when she shows us that yes, WAR IS BAD. Duh!

A PS to all you positive reviewers: No we do not need to be reminded that WAR IS BAD because only a moron doesn't know that. Are you really that dumb that you need to have a film tell you that? Compare this crapfest to "Apocalypse Now" , "Thin Red Line", "Paths of Glory"- films that actually SAY SOMETHING OF INTELLEGENCE. Rather than a formulaic, paint by numbers piece that only says the obvious & nothing that anyone will disagree with. AGREEING WITH ONE'S SENTIMENT DOES NOT MAKE FOR GOOD ART. I just wish people were smarter and didn't fall for such maudlin & bathetic characters & poor cliched trite scripts. The End

Rating:
Summary: Terrible & trite
Review: I should have titled this paint by number's war story as "Steve can't tell a story". The film opens with a sappy old guy weeping at a grave. Cliche #1. Then there is a flashback & you are supposed to think it's Tom Hanks. Flashback: Cliche #2. Then there is the downright lie about Marshall issuing these men out to search for this one guy. I can't believe people aren't offended by this. In fact, I think it's downright libelous & thankfully Marshall is dead. Then we have a parade of steriotypical characters. The Jew, the Southern boy, the bad-boy, & several other generic guys you really don't care about. Then Tom Hanks walks around with stripes on his helmet (so snipers can easily tip him off- makes sense) & then surprise, in the ending we are back to the old guy who is not Tom Hanks, but Ryan, who incedentally, is the one who was having a flashback to the beginning battle scene, who guess what- wasn't even there. So he's having a memory of a battle that didn't involve his memory at all. But ironically, even though the beginning scene isn't needed for narrative- it's turns out to be the only thing worth watching in this terrible dreck of a film. This is bad, bad storytelling that people like to overlook because you know, "war is hell", which is the basis of this film. Ok, so war is hell. I agree. We could have stopped the film after the first three minutes, but instead it goes on forever, bla, bla, bla to three hours later & lots of special effects, till were at the old man again, asking his wife if he's "lead a good life. Tell me I'm a good man." This is just downright maudlin & forced emotion. But then again- this is about WAR & how I should APPRECIATE the SENTEMENT rather than the INTELLECT behind the story, which is really nothing & adds nothing new other than to show off the recreation of the most famous battle in US history (next to Gettysburg). Wonder why Steve is the richest director? Because he finds topics that no one will disagree with, shows the Germans to be one-dimentional killing machines, and the poor, poor Americans sent on this murderous mission to save one guy who in the end isn't worth the lives of all those men. Wake up people & smell the cliches.

Rating:
Summary: Homage to Veterans
Review: I saw this movie when it first came out to the theaters. I had been fore-warned about some "unsettling" scenes at the beginning of the movie. Indeed, there is a graphic depiction of the horrors of war that should leave all viewers ill at ease (to say the least). Many people may object to these scenes. I came to the conclusion that Spielberg intended to give his audience a glimpse of the horror and chaos of war. I believe that he did so, not so much to shock us, but to give us a greater appreciation of what our veterans endured in times of war (and that, in turn, IS shocking). If this movie had accomnplished nothing else, it deserves our appreciation for that one aspect. I think that we at home appreciate the risk and the sacrifices that our men and women in the military services accept. We just never got such a lesson in what they went through before. Imagine having to keep your wits about you when all that carnage is happening all around you to people you know and care about. I think that this movie will be shown regularly on Memorial Day and Veterans Day as well it should.

That issue aside, there is a lot more to this movie and, again, it all points towards honoring the commitment of our men in uniform. The very beginning of the movie sets us up for the idea that we are seeing this movie from the perspective of a veteran. The story evolves that a group of soldiers are asigned a special task during the D-Day invasion aftermath. The assignment itself seems impossible and there are times that a number of the men want to quit. This serves as a reminder that soldiers aren't consulted on their missions, they simply go out and do what they are required to do, regardless of how much sense it makes. Ultimately, the men, and the movie, reach a climatic point and we are reminded again about the horrors of war. The movie concludes back in the present with a moving scene that shows the depth of the camaraderie of men that served in combat together.

This movie boasts many things including outstanding acting and direction. The special effects, as mentioned, are outstanding. There is a message about combat that is disturbing but very honest. We see men doing things that appear very wrong to us sitting in our comfortable seats. We see men who rise to the task as well as men who fail to meet the task. This reminds us all that these soldiers are men who were called to battle. They are like us but we are not like them. They are in the arena and we are not. What would we have done, how would we have coped, how would our comrades remember us? All these questions are thrust at us and it underscores the message of the film; we have always lived amongst heroes who went off to war and quietly came back home. Watch this movie and you will be better able to appreciate the veterans in your community.

Rating:
Summary: Slow Moving - not one of Tom Hank's better movies
Review: Personally of you're looking for a good war movie I'd suggest Midway over this. Had a hard time staying awake, didn't think the film ever came close to all of the hype about it. Went away think what a waste of film, effort, time, and money.

Rating:
Summary: Remember
Review: Of all the war movies ever made,this came the closest to capturing what it must of been like for the infantry man in WWII.

I was fortunate growing up in the Vietnam war era not to have been selected in the draft. I always felt that the United States treated the veterans of that war poorly.

Saving Private Ryan should be required viewing for all people who value liberty and freedom. Men like those depicted in this movie gave us that liberty and freedom with their heart, souls and in many instances their lives. We should not forget them

One more note, anyone who acknowledges the review by Agitated Reviewer as being worth while should have their head examined

Rating:
Summary: Saving Private Ryan
Review: What can I say about "Saving Private Ryan" that hasn't been said before? I don't know, to be honest. It starts out in 1944 Normandy Invasion, or D-Day. This is a nearly thirty minute battle on the beach with the most graphic war violence in recent war movie history, maybe ever. After that the story movies plot really start. Cpt. Miller's (Tom Hanks) squad is picked to lead a mission to find an Airborn Ranger Private, Ryan, and send him home because his other three brothers were killed in combat. The movie, I think, is about the militery issuing near pointless PR missions (risking ten mens lives to make sure one man goes home alive) and the men who has to go. It also shows the horrors of war and the price of vanity (the General's plane shot down because it was too heavy to make a getaway). Tom Hanks is excellent as the heart and soul od the movie. Tom Siezmore is pretty good as the weary platoon sargeant who marches on with his orders compliantly. Matt Damon is good as the soldier who refuses to leave his men helpless. All in all it's an important war film, deserving of your time.

Rating:
Summary: thebike needs to brush up....
Review: thebike needs to brush up on his omaha beach landing studies...read the book beyond the beachhead, and stephen ambrose's d-day history...the 29th division (A virginia national guard unit no less) was decimated in the first fifteen minutes of the omaha landing. i don't want sound like a professor to a student but you are truly misinformed...no one just walked up Omaha beach.

Rating:
Summary: Well-made film, but poorly written
Review: This is a pretty good movie from the production standpoint. The scenes are vivid, bloody, gory, disgusting, and in some parts surreal -- which many veterans say appropriately depicts how war feels. While I thankfully will probably never know what D-Day was like, this film gets us closer to knowing how it was than without it.
It needs to be gory. As one veteran put it in the 25 minute documentary (paraphrasing from memory), "It's good to know the horrors of war. That way, we think twice about engaging in it." Politics aside, that certainly has special meaning today. There are lots of additional points about the reality of day-to-day war, in all its unpleasantness.

However, I did not enjoy this movie. I'm a WW2 enthusiast. In fact, I recently came back from a trip to Normandy. I'm not going to go on about pointy factual historical inaccuracies, that exists in any film.

However, I found it truly offensive that the story involves only American soldiers, enemy German soldiers, and feeble French civilians. I've no problem with the point of view from an American unit, but in the story all the units get mixed up, intermingle with others, etc. But they don't seem to mix with British and Canadian troops for some reason. They never meet any members of the French Resistance, which numbered in the hundreds of thousands and were crucial to the Battle's success. Ditto for the Free French Forces, Polish forces, all of whom were also involved. In fact, the only mention of other Allied troops is through the nickname "Monty" referring to the British forces led by general Montgomery, that they called "overrated". They were not overrated. It's okay if one character says that, but it's insulting if it's the only mention of other countries' troops.

This is not only insulting to other veterans who also died in the war, but is a continuation of the propaganda that only America liberated France. Of the five Normandy beaches, only two were American, two more were British, and one was Canadian. We were all in this.

Responsible for this is the historical consultant, "historian" Ambrose. In the documentary recalling the context of D-Day, he doesn't even mention that its purpose was creating a 2nd front, to the Russian front, in fact he nor anyone else doesn't mention the Russians participation, and went so far as to say that without D-Day that Nazis would still be there today. Such blatant nationalist arrogance from a historian is simply not acceptable.

For decent retelling of D-Day, watch "The Longest Day", filmed on location, telling multiple sides of the story; it's not as well-made as Saving Private Ryan from a production standpoint, and the characters feel thin, but it's accurate. Also check out "A Bridge Too Far". Sadly, no recent film manages to adequately capture WW2; they're either biased, glorifying of war, touchy-feely, or generally demonising of German soldiers. If you're really serious about D-Day, go to Normandy, at Caen, Bayeux, Pointe-du-Hoc, Colleville-sur-mer, and the tons of museums there, especially the Caen Memorial.

Rating:
Summary: A good introduction to a bad genre
Review: This movie was a good see in general, bringing the horrors of war on screen in a moving experience. Unfortunately this movie has led to a whole bunch of bad war movie follow-ups, such as windtalkers, tears of the sun, and black hawk doen.

Rating:
Summary: Saving Private Ryan is a good movie.
Review: Great performance by Tom Hanks. This movie really brings history to life.