Wartime Grit with an Unlikely Premise  8 (Very Good)

Rating: 8/10 (5 June 2005)

This Academy Award Winning Best Picture of 1998 contains the grittiest, most graphic war scenes I've ever seen on film. On top of that, the film quality is pristine and the high-speed equipment used to shoot the movie is nothing short of groundbreaking in the war genre. That being the case, does the artistic quality of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN automatically overshadow/surpass the other movies of 1998 like American History X or Run Lola Run for example? Perhaps so.
Still, as I attribute the entire 8 stars to artistic merit, the last two gaping empty stars must be addressed. The premise that the movie is based upon, namely the mission of bringing back one soldier to his mother mandated by the war department, is simply something I cannot swallow. What's the word I want to use to describe how I feel about the impetus for the movie? It's not cheesy, nor is it saccharine. I feel as if it's an insult to my intelligence. Let me spell this out word for word...
First of all, I simply don't understand why history has been racked with so many wars. I'm not rabidly anti-war per Se. I just want to understand why the people of one nation collectively want to kill the people of another nation. IMDb is not the place to discuss such issues at length, so let's assume for now that wars are fought for any of a million reasons: defense, propagation of freedom, power, resources, territory, maybe the utter lack of something better to do.
Now here is my gripe with SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, which otherwise is a masterpiece. If the war department is focusing all of its energy and machinery on the above mentioned war objectives, is it plausible for them to really care about one kid or his mother? I am curious how the parents of American soldiers killed in Iraq feel when they watch this movie. I just cannot for one second believe that the American defense department would go to such lengths for any single individual.
Rather than swallow this implausible premise hook line and sinker, I would more enjoy a film that exposes the real modus operandi behind bloodthirsty war machinery. Platoon or Apocalypse Now are considered classics, and rightly so given the grimy mood each depicts. But despite is technologically phenomenal production, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is too heavy with the flag-waving patriotic Dreamworks score and tells a story you'd only find off the shelves of Disney Corporation -- one that is sugar-coated at the core and just plain fantasy.
JY
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