Good but not as great as some have said, and not as good as The Thin Red Line

Rating: Null/10 (23 May 1999)

I just saw Saving Private Ryan shortly after seeing The Thin Red Line and I can say that Mallick's film is definitely superior to Spielberg's. Yes the combat scenes in SPR were very powerful and realistic but I felt disappointed by the movie as a whole. The scenes where characters would just trade anecdotes of their lives in the States seemed tacked on and was a ham-fisted way of showing that the soldiers were just "regular boys who wanted to get home." And of course there was the final shot of the American flag fading to credits which clinched this film as being a fairly standard issue Hollywood war movie. The beach landing scene was gut wrenching but after the movie was over I really didn't think about it for too long, unlike The Thin Red Line which I think delves much further into the emotional aspects of what war is and leaves questions which need to be explored through multiple viewings of the film. Saving Private Ryan is a movie you should see, but once is enough.