Best buddy movie ever (please, don't flame me).

Rating: 10/10 (12 December 2004)

It's a buddy movie. I'd love to get on my soapbox and quote 'Henry V' at you all day long, but the bottom line is, this movie is all about buddies. I am not interested in molecularly accurate historical fact, so I wasn't bombed out by some small insignificant detail. Instead, I chose to feel how these men, these ordinary men, felt, and how they treated each other. I griped a bit about the lack of back-stories about some of the men (like Reiben or Jackson), but then I realized that they were just like you and me. We all know the story of you and me, and the story moves confidently because of that, without being bogged down by too many flashbacks to an earlier life that would have hurt the pacing.
The cinematography is really good because you get close-ups on their faces a lot of the time, and other close-ups on important things like hands and bleeding corpses and so on (unlike We Were Soldiers, which suffered from too many wide shots). As a result, you get to see every little crook in their expressions and every facial tic, so you feel for them much more. Focusing on Tom Hanks' hands was one of the most well-chosen shots ever, because it showed the vulnerability of the man without too much exposition or violence.
Additionally, let me say that all the actors put in their best performances for this movie. While Matt Damon was a little stiff, the rest were Oscar gold as they grimaced and swore through the movie, and there was never the 'politically correct' feeling that crippled other war movies. I'd like to highlight three awesome actors who deserve to be paid in nothing but solid Academy gold. Medic Wade, played by Giovanni 'Vonnie' Ribisi, Corporal Upham, played by Jeremy Davies, and of course the lead actor himself, Tom Hanks in the role of John Miller. All three delivered powerful (in Upham's case, powerfully pathetic) performances, and the final scene, you truly get to see the groundbreaking ability of Tom Hanks. Ribisi is notable because of one particular conversation that, if handled by a lesser actor, would be merely melodramatic.
One minor quibble is the beginning and ending scenes, which were completely out of step with the 'buddy buddy' feeling that permeated this movie. While the resolution does tie up all the loose ends, it just makes it so...flat. But it's a minor quibble nonetheless.
The plot itself is paced well, the actors are brilliant, the script is sharp and honest, the gore is substantiated and not overdone, so what's stopping you from watching this movie?