Lousy script and blatant Oscar begging

Rating: 4/10 (6 July 1999)

Spielberg's WW2 epic has often been hailed as the greatest war movie ever made, but unfortunately an awful script hampered the brilliant performances, superb direction and the most realistic battle scenes ever filmed. A scripted was riddled with clichés and American jingoism from the start that completely marred the film and did not move me at all. It was also the most blatant attempt at Oscar begging in the history of cinema, so much so that it would have been far subtler for the entire cast and crew to spend the entire running time on their knees and plead with the Academy to give them the awards! Hank's "I don't know anything about Ryan speech" had Best Actor Nomination Clip written all over it. Damon's "I'm trying to picture my brothers" talk was his bid to make up for last year's disappointment for "Good Will Hunting". The jerky photography, which was little, more than a strain on the eyes, wrapped up Best Cinematography Oscar. The fact that the film lost out on the big night to "Shakespeare in Love" (itself ludicrously over awarded) gave Speilberg his comeuppance. The characters to were stereotyped and cardboard and spoke utterly contrived dialogue. There's ALWAYS a religious one, Jew, an Italian, and a New Yorker, a tough sergeant and a rookie. Even Hanks (who really should think of going back to comedy films) played himself as the nice paternal figure. The film also gave out the message that the Americans won the war. There was not a single other allied soldier in the film. Not a problem on its own as Omaha was an all American landing spot, but what was unforgivable was that General Montgomery was slammed as "overrated". That was totally uncalled for and completely out of place in the situation. SPR was merely Speilberg exercising his greatest flaw that of recycling the same concept over and over again. SPR was in the same vain as "Amistad" and "Schlindler's List": that of showing the world the pain and suffering that a particular group of people went through and getting acclaim for it. The concept is wearing rather thin now Steven.