Clichéd, tedious and incredibly unpleasant to watch

Rating: 3/10 (10 February 2016)

In the aftermath of D-Day, Tom Hanks and his platoon of soldiers are sent off on a glorified PR-mission into harm's way to "rescue" and bring home the last surviving member of the Ryan family.
Steven Spielberg can be a truly great director, but Saving Private Ryan is an increasingly tiresome and nearly unwatchable trudge through war movie clichés. After the harrowing opening recreation, the film slides inexorably downhill into a rut from which it never emerges. For all of the heralding by critics and fans of what a great film this is, it is predictable, mind-numbing and finally butt-numbing.
A minor history lesson. While it is true that in events where an entire generation of a family enlisted and all but one died, there were efforts to extract and return the soldier in question home. However, extraction often meant waiting for the soldier or his commanding officer(s) to be in contact and then make appropriate arrangements for said soldier to be removed as soon as possible. Try as I might, I can find no historic evidence that documents what happens in this film, in that an entire platoon of men are placed in constant life-threatening situations in order to extract a single private for a glorified PR stunt.
Spielberg often has problems with conclusions, especially in his more serious endeavors. That is definitely the case here, which features a wraparound, which opens at Arlington Cemetery with the aged Ryan and concludes there as well. The entire segment is badly directed and heavy-handed.
The script itself is almost ridiculously slight, particularly for a near 3-hour running time. The men in the platoon are all marching clichés reduced to types seen in a thousand other (and in many cases much better) war films. Each actor pretty much fastens in on one character trait and allows that to suffice for a performance. Hanks fares best as the everyman leader and Tom Sizemore is adequate as the second-in-command, but they have given very similar performances elsewhere. Worst performances come from Jeremy Davies, who overacts hysterically in the final third, and Edward Burns, who somehow manages to make his character supremely unlikable.
For the duration of the film, it hits the same tedious notes. The men trod through the ugly war zone, one of them confides something personal and is then subsequently obliterated in an often painfully protracted geyser of gore. The platoon's slog resumes, someone else confides a personal story and then said person is annihilated shortly thereafter. Over and over again and again...until a handful remain to find their quarry. Given that their losses do not endear the survivors to their quarry, it comes as no surprise when they finally face Private Ryan (solidly played by Matt Damon), who is such a congenial, aw-shucks, Middle American nice guy, that not only are the surviving men immediately charmed by him, but when Ryan refuses to leave his post, our survivors defy their orders to extract him immediately and stand by him in the chaotic final onslaught.
There is pretty much nothing in the way of surprise in the film and everything unfolds in a slow and tortuously predictable fashion. About the only surprise is how needlessly and relentlessly brutal Spielberg is with the violence. After the opening moments of horrific carnage, I think everyone gets the whole "war is hell" scenario. Unfortunately, Spielberg never ratchets back the violence - releasing free-flowing blood, gore and body parts at the camera.
Worse, the film is incredibly ugly to look at. Many WW2 veterans recount the beauty of Europe during their service, yet the entire color palette of this film consists of mud brown, bleak greys and depressing blues (and of course dark red blood). Spielberg also over-utilizes the now too common place Shake-cam 4000, in which the camera jitters all over the place like its got palsy or is afflicted by St. Vitus's Dance, which I gather is supposed to provide a "you are there" authenticity, but instead generates motion sickness, migraines and frustration.
A really tiresome and criminally overrated viewing experience. By the climax, when the elderly Ryan questions whether it was all worth it, you may well find yourself responding negatively.