anti war it is not

Rating: Null/10 (17 January 1999)

i have to disagree with the idea that Ryan is an anti war movie, let alone the best ever. it was well shot, and in parts well acted but i found it repulsively right wing. when the good guys get shot they die painful deaths but when the evil Germans (also human too mr Spielberg, also with families) get shot they fall over like cardboard cut outs. the one german who we get a close look at turns out to be a callous cowardly pig who will happily lie to escape and then shoot the man who showed him respect. moral? never trust a german.
tom hanks was miscast, his character should not have been there, tom sizemore would have made a much better lead. cut out the sentiment, it was cloying and pointless. also there was the deliberate misleading scene at the beginning. old man sees tombstone and thinks back.... back.... back to the beaches where he suddenly becomes tom hanks. well we know he doesn't die then, because he was the one at the beginning. oh how clever he was really ryan. that flag waving at the beginning was almost a joke, even Capra would have balked at that. drop the prologue and epilogue please it was dire. "tell me i'm a good man." the whole finding the wrong ryan bit was guff and a waste of time too because we all knew dopey matt damon was ryan. on that subject, brave ryan refuses to leave his boys but when the shooting starts what does he do? crouch down and start crying! surely a coward like him would have jumped ship at the first opportunity. another big mistake was casting ted danson, the whole cinema said "ooh it's ted danson in a wig" in unison. next up at that point could well have been a madonna cameo as edith piaf in a dream sequence.
the opening battle sequence was some of Spielberg's best work since Jaws. without a doubt great cinema, but what was the point? it bore no relation to the story and was not anti war either. it was anti being shot, portraying the horrors of being blown up. war was not condemmed, the question of soldiers on both sides being unwitting pawns was never raised and the film was totally lacking a moral centre. war was a matter of the good people overcoming the bad people and if that meant killing them with no remorse (anyone in the film troubled by the horror?) then it was done in the name of (the) right (wing). unfortunately by making the opening so realistic Spielberg has succeeded in passing the whole thing off as history so another generation of americans and anyone else who has not studied history will think that the war between america and germany started in 1941. would it have been too much trouble to include some british, french or any other european soldiers. and correct me if i'm wrong but i'm sure there were black soldiers in WWII, but i must have missed them in this film.
yes i left the cinema angry, angry that such a good opportunity was wasted with pro american revisionist flag waving claptrap. and if tom hanks gets another oscar for being wet and dying then i will handing mine back to the academy.