Vastly over-rated

Rating: 2/10 (18 September 2007)

The first half hour of Saving Private Ryan is excitingly filmed, graphic and horrifying. The rest of the movie is maudlin, bloated, badly plotted and with some of the least compelling dialogue it has been my misfortune to hear. A movie that starts and ends with the US flag is likely to put non-American viewers off side. It would appear that the only people involved in World War II were the Americans, a few cowed and unimportant French peasants and pantomime German villains. A psychiatrist friend of mine assures me that this movie is a classic illustration of the isolation caused by post traumatic stress disorder, but her husband agrees with me that the movie is just rubbish. The Thin Red Line, which was so overshadowed by this farrago, was of a poetic beauty that is rare in US cinema. See that instead.