NOT FOR THE SQUEAMISH; you have been warned.

Rating: Null/10 (26 November 2000)

I was late into the theatre, and entered right when all the bloody stuff was happening. The woman behind me gasped every time blood was shed (like every.9876 of a second). I sat there for three hours (close enough, anyway) without even knowing it.
Spielberg had done it again. And he got his richly deserved Oscar for Best Director (the fact that Best Picture eluded them was a cheap move on the part of the Academy). Most war movies paint the enemy in a way that makes them really easy to hate, ending up as a fascist, pseudo-propagandic piece.

But this wasn't. They weren't on a mission for war secrets, or to assassinate a Nazi general, but to get this ONE guy out of the madness.

There's Captain Miller, with a Yossarian-like attempt to escape the madness, his relentlessly cheerful staff, the roadblocks and obstacles, and finally, Ryan, who they'd not expected.
It didn't focus on the evils of the war, showing only the soldiers and not the kind of anti-whatsit speeches about their enemies, and it didn't promote the greatness of American power, despite all the patriotic music. Except, maybe, when you see the star-spangled banner at the beginning and so on, but otherwise, it was pretty neutral politically.
At any rate, it deserves its place among the 200 best films of all time (according ot IMDB), and all the blood and guts and gore somehow wasn't brutal or sadistic, but merely showing it as it was.