The Spielberg Touch?

Rating: Null/10 (6 June 2002)

SPR is really two movies, the one gutsy and innovative, the other improbable and in need of much suspension of disbelief on the part of the viewer. The first twenty minutes of SPR deal with the realities of the landing on Normandy Beach, by the elite US Army Rangers. This is the movie with the level of gore and computer pyrotechnics that Hollywood, as part WWII war propaganda machine was totally unwilling, let alone incapable of showing. This was what was missing from a half century of war movies. The gruesome nature of true combat, the psychological effect on even trained soldiers are impeccably portrayed. On the other hand, after the landing has been achieved, we're thrown into a platoon of Rangers who are saddled with the unlikely task of locating a trooper (private Ryan) because all his brothers have already been killed. Although the movie now and then returns to it's war movie roots, the premise is so unlikely as to lose the viewer. Certainly the second half isn't living up to the first.
Still recommended.