Fatally flawed

Rating: 2/10 (28 February 1999)

That so many retaliatory comments have flown along the lines of 'What's wrong with being patriotic?' and 'kiss my red and white striped ...' it seems perhaps the whole point of war films has been missed.
Truly great war films transcend such heroic, staunch patriotism to deliver the message that war sucks. This film has been praised for its true portrayal of war, yet from veterans I've had contact with, their sentiments were that war was a nightmare for everyone - that they were all just men/boys in hell - despite whom they had sworn any allegiance to.
And so many young people I've spoken to left this film with the thoughts 'thank god we were fighting alongside America' and that Germans were demonized. At the same time people are claiming that this film should be shown to all school children. Yet what message does the film send exactly? True - the first half hour is a brilliantly harrowing piece of cinema, which managed to brutally show the ugliness of war better than any film beforehand. Yet I feel a great war film should ignore patriotism and concentrate on how war debases humans of ALL nationalities, and indeed that war transcends these other superficial divisions.
A good film? Yes. The greatest war film? Not on my top 5 - I'm inclined to lean towards Das Boot - true-to-history graphic brutality isn't everything.