Trying To Match 'Saving Private Ryan' but didn't

Rating: 7/10 (30 January 2016)

This film had everything going for it.
Good actors, gritty realism, great visually. and tanks at war.
But yet another film, let down by a poor script. Otherwise it was on course to be a great film.
Are all the good script writers still on strike or something?
There seem to be so many films you watch and think WTF !. Where something is totally unbelievable and destroys 'the magic' for the audience..
Here hard bitten veteran tank crew, led by Brad Pitt are fighting in France after the D-Day invasion during WW2.
The film starts with them taking on a 'rookie' to replace a crew man killed in action.
All well and good. The rookie gets his baptism of fire and learns from Pitt that in war it's kill or be killed. There's no time for morals or civilised behaviour.
It's the ending of the film that totally ruins it for me.
4 Shermans are sent to hold a cross roads. All except one (Brad Pitts) are destroyed en- route.
But it arrives, drives over a mine and is disabled. Shortly after they discover there's a host of German soldiers on the way. Not just any Germans but fanatical elite SS.
So does veteran hard bitten realist Pitt do the sensible thing? i.e. abandon the tank and withdraw on foot. Go to the rear, get a new tank etc. The rest of crew see the sense in this and suggest doing it.
But no, Brad decides to stay with his disabled tank because "it's his home". WTF !
The crew being similarly mentally impaired decide to stay with him.
I can't help think that the writer/makers of this film were trying for the same great ending as 'Saving Private Ryan'. But where as infantry trying to hold a bridge for tactical reasons had some logic to it.
Staying with a disabled Sherman didn't make sense. I mean it's disabled, it's a sitting duck.
Fortunately the approaching Germans were also clearly retarded.
They kept doing these infantry charges at the front of the tank. Apparently in infantry school they were never taught to 'go round' and flank a strong point. Attack from behind.
Or even just leave a couple of snipers and go round.
After an intense bloody and pointless battle, everyone in the tank, except the rookie, is killed.
The rookie hides underneath the tank. Unfortunately one of the SS see's him.
But fortunately this kindly SS solider decides to say nothing.
Even though about 60 of his colleagues are lying dead in the mud around him because of the idiots in this tank.
I never realised the SS were noted for their compassion. I thought the fanatical SS were responsible for most of the atrocities committed by the German army during WW2.
Later the next day the rookie is discovered by advancing G.I.s and thankfully the film is over.
Who ever wrote that ending should be run over by a tank at least 10 times. WTF !