Get over yourselves, negativists!

Rating: Null/10 (17 August 2001)

Whilst SPR might not be the be-all and end-all war movie, I take great humor in reading most of the negative reviews on this movie. Many have nothing at all to do with the movie per se, but more with people's gripes about how other nations were portrayed in this movie.
GET OVER IT!
The movie portrays the efforts of the American Rangers on Omaha Beach. That's O-MA-HA. Not Gold, not Sword, not Juno. That's why there's no portrayal of French, Canadian, or British troops.
It seems to me, that any time there is a movie that shows what the US did in WWII, and doesn't give equal time to the other allied troops, everyone needs to kvetch. What most seem to forget is that the US lost more troops than all the other allied forces combined, that they spent more than all the other counties, (which still have not paid the US back) and were it not for the US's involvement in WWII, all of Europe would today be wearing lederhosen and playing the accordian. This from a country that was not directly affected by the events taking place in Europe
Similarly, I read many reviews taking umbrage with the negative comments directed towards Montgomery.
GET OVER IT!
Monty was a megalomaniac with a serious case of p*n*s envy because he couldn't run the whole show. Patton proved that he could out-battle, out-tactic, and out-run Monty in any theatre of war. Granted, Monty had some success in Africa, but he spent the rest of the war whining to Eisenhower for equal authority, and supplies, which (I believe) Eisenhower gave him to shut him up, at the expense of Patton's troops, who were taking names and kicking butt. What did Monty do? Why Operation Market Garden, of course. An operation that pretty much decimated all the allied forces that took part in it.
Next, I read about so many people finding the middle of the movie boring. Do these commentators forget the adage about war being "long periods of boredom interspersed with moments of sheer terror?" What did you expect, that they fight a gazillion troops all the way to Ryan, and fight their way back out again unscathed? War IS like that. It is NOT like the current action movies out there today, where the hero might get grazed by a bullet and continue to fight, only to get the girl in the end.
I also read about the Germans being demonized in this movie. How quickly they forget Auschwitz; how quickly they forget Dachau. How quickly they forget that as an occupying force, the Germans raped whomever they pleased, shot whomever they pleased. Millions of Germans bought into Hitler's promises. They willingly went to war for him. They tried to conquer the world, and cared not for the innocents they were slaughtering along the way.
So don't whine about it. In this politically-correct, liberal, UN "Peace-Keeping" day, we forget that soldiers were encouraged back then to HATE their enemy; to believe him the devil. They called the enemy "Krauts," and "Nips," and "Eye-Ties," so that when the time came to kill them, soldiers were able to do it. Back then we fought until they were defeated. Today, we do it until they say "I'm sorry," and then pay them billions of dollars to rebuild. Finally, remember the scene after the US took the beach: The scene of Americans carelessly shooting surrendering enemy forces. Don't try to say that it was one-sided.
Lastly, I saved the D-Day beachhead for last. Too many people have commented that this was too gory, too long, too dully filmed, and not an accurate depiction of how war really is. To that, I can only offer this: Why then, did so many veterans of that invasion feel the need to walk out of the movie, stating that they couldn't watch it because it was too real? Why did many veterans cry during this scene? As to it being too dully filmed, please check your history: The invasion had been postponed several times because the weather was too rainy, and as late as the day before, it was pouring rain up and down the French coast, and in England as well.
Saving Private Ryan might not be the best war film ever made, but it is the best war film made TO DATE.