Spielberg at his Best?...directing wise yes.

Rating: 10/10 (21 August 2000)

I own this movie on DVD and it still remains very solid amongst my large collection. Spielberg is truly a master director. Finally someone has accurately portrayed what it was like in battle. From the ultra-realistic depiction of gore and violence to the drama of the dying medic (get to that later)and most importantly portraying the wounded in battle. I also like the way Spielberg kind of exposed, or degraded the film to kind of give it an old, gritty look to it, very nice effect. Saving Private Ryan is, honestly in my opinion, Speilberg at his directing best. However, there are a few gripes. First off, I have yet to see a war movie which combined all of the needed elements to make it "the best war movie ever!" Full Metal Jacket is close but no cigar. Anyway one of the most important of these elements would be character development, in which case Saving Private Ryan had none. The whole story behind Saving Private Ryan was to figure out who the old man was. And what little character development they did have turned out to be fruitless and not very interesting. Another element missed was emotion. True, the soldiers frightened faces and yells of mass hysteria was great and all, but I thought if this movie would some how have implemented a narration of some kind, then maybe I would care for the main characters a bit more. Third element missing was the plot. What can you do in 3 hours when the whole plot revolves around going out to find someone. Walk a little talk a little, fight, walk a little talk a little fight, die, fight, walk. It seemed kind of muddled and boring. And another gripe, which isn't really a big deal, is how the medic died. What the hell is he doing charging at a machine gun nest? Since medics aren't allowed to carry weapons, I was just pondering why they would have him run along with them. I mean, what's he going to do when he gets to the enemy, heal them to death? Or maybe, just maybe, if he was in syringe range he could take an enemy out with a critical stab, ahhh die Germans die!!! Anyway, with all gripes aside, I still loved this movie. Thanks to Spielberg that is. I enjoyed it in the theaters and I enjoyed it at home. The war scenes are unmatched, music is great and overall it was well done. Kudos. *** out of ****