in spite of memorable combat scenes, liberal sentiment cheapens collective tragedy

Rating: 5/10 (10 January 1999)

Smug liberal Spielberg toggles back and forth between documentary style violence and sentimental reflections between soldiers: the Captain is revealed to be an English Lit teacher in civilian life who can instruct the novice writer character and others with idealised rhetoric about both the unique contribution each can make to the mission as well as their ability to choose at will a vision/memory of "the good life" back home worth fighting for: this emphasis upon individual freedom detracts from shared debate among the men about both the worthiness of the mission to save one guy, and the larger reasons for American involvement in the war. This deflates any anti- war sentiment in the film. Significantly, Ryan is the sole survivor who must, alone in the cemetery (predictably, his accompanying family are as silent as his fallen comrades), decide/hope he was "a good man" worthy of their sacrifice. In this emotional lynchpin of the movie, Spielberg suggestively cuts to Old Glory flapping in the wind: the link drawn between liberal pluralism/individual choice and the symbol of America remains an insidious and powerful ideological moment, equalled only by the title character in "Schindler's List" who had the power to choose who would live or die. Consistently in his historical revisionist pieces, Spielberg suggests this is the only kind of freedom worth fighting for, with no awareness of how it merely compounds the tragedy.