WHY?

Rating: Null/10 (14 June 2003)

I really don't understand some of the issues raised by people after viewing this movie. They seem to bring their own agendas.
Some people ask why no Brits were portrayed.....why should there be? Okay, there were Brits (and Canadians etc) invading France....but what do they have to do with the efforts of an American squad ordered by American superiors to locate an American paratrooper who was with other American troops so he can be sent back to his American mother who had lost 3 other of her American sons.
If the movie were about Brits fighting on Sword or Juno and some Tommy was lost inland and the Brits needed to find him to send him home to Liverpool or Dymchurch....I wouldn't moan about the film not showing Omaha Beach and Americans not being shown.
Now, yes,there were Hispanic and Black soldiers there. Many blacks steered the landing craft. Spielberg COULD'VE added a black landing craft driver and a hispanic soldier blown to bits...but aren't we all a little tired of tokenism? I know I find the inclusion of a white character in "black" movies like DRUMLINE kind of cheap and pandering. Would the inclusion of a Hispanic soldier in the squad made it a better movie? Would the sight of a Hispanic soldier dying on the beach made it a better movie?
And again, would someone please explain the comments about Germans being portrayed as stupid and/or evil?
During the film, we see AMERICAN soldiers:
Gleefully laugh as they shoot Germans attempting to surrender at Normandy
A soldier so frozen with fear that he neglects his fellow soldiers in their time of need
A soldier threatens to desert the squad and disobey his officers
And what do the Germans do that's evil? They shoot Americans (no Brits) and they stab them and Germans manning tanks fire at Americans......that's not evil...that's WAR!
Then people say that after the first half hour,that the movie becomes routine. Well, I don't get that. They are on a quest. Just like in LORD OF THE RINGS. We DID get to know each soldier. Not as much as the soldiers in a mini-series like BAND OF BROTHERS but then, did we really know more about them than the guys in SPR?
If the entire movie were like the first half hour, some of you would be complaining that there wasn't enough quiet character development.
And how could anyone say Tom Hanks is a bad actor?