War, What is it good for?

Rating: 8/10 (8 August 1999)

This movie is worthy of the Oscar acclaim that it received. The opening D-Day scene will turn your stomach with cinematography that seems to come very close to reality. I read one comment that said, "Sure, it depicted what war is like, but we all know what war is like already." What a slap in the face this kind of thinking is to the men and women who have actually stood in the line of fire. No one can know what war is like, unless they've actually been there. If you have never experienced war firsthand, and the good lord willing, will never experience it, then this movie may be the closest thing in depicting what it would be like.
As far as the movie's premise, I took a class in college once called "Modern War and Morality". In this class we pondered the same issues that are discussed by the soldiers in this movie. In one scene, Hanks says every person that you kill, you have to consider it 20 lives saved, at least he says, that is how you have to think. Some people would call it rationalizing an irrational act. Well, this movie is full of these philosophical dilemmas.
And while I have heard some people call the bookend gravesite scenes corny and unneeded, I think they add a great touch to the movie. James Ryan could be any WWII vet, reminiscing on gruesome times, and great friends and relatives lost.