Most Morally Powerful War Drama brought to the Screen

Rating: Null/10 (23 February 2001)

I first saw "SPR" back in 1998 on opening night, and was moved then and still am. I display it prominently in my DVD case, and defend it as the best War movie ever made.
What I can't figure out is why people "can't get it". When you observe the two bookend scenes of the old man and his family, and the American Flag--it says much. I think it is a question of values and morals. Far to many people watch Oliver Stone's "Platoon" and can only think that war is evil, and anything that goes back to WWII is graphically irrepressible. While "Platoon" is a great adaptation of the Vietnam War and I'll endorse it for that conflict, and why we should never have been there, all one has to do is see Spielberg's earlier epic of "Schindlers List" to realize why WWII was right for America to be in. All too often these politically correct values that came out of the Vietnam War era seam to go against what often are traditional American Values such as home and family. "Nothing is worth losing one's life for" I think is a bad attitude that has resided in our society for the past three decades or more. "Make Love not War" seams to have replaced any moral values we once had as a society. "The risking of the lives of eight men" to find one is a scenario that troubles those who think in this purely secular way. I'm certainly greatful to those of that earlier generation that were called upon to fight. Something I don't think the later could do even if confronted with such a threat to personal freedoms that Nazi Germany represented at that time.
This is a great show for older Teens (14-15 and older). To those who feel this show should have received an NC-17 rating take a look at your thinking as stated above. If the MPAA had a split R rating as most other Nations Ratings Boards have, Mr. Spielberg I'm sure would argue and I would agree that it should go into the lower of the two (MA or M-14). If you're a moral person you'll like this show and the story of heroism, courage and honor it brings to the screen, but if you're a purely secular person with more humanist values you won't. I too feel it was the greatest heist that "Shakespeare in Love" narrowly edged it out for best picture for 1998. But then I'm sure that those with the values opposite to mine felt otherwise ---David Moore