a mishmash

Rating: Null/10 (12 November 2001)

I just saw this movie on TV last night, so I missed a lot of the sound effects that I'm sure contributed a great deal to the atmosphere. But based on what I did see, I thought the film had some great things in it, but was still flawed.
Spielberg seemed mainly interested in re-creating the "feel" of fighting in WWII, and in many ways he did an excellent job (as far as I can tell, not having been there). The camera work and stunt choreography was often simply astonishing, and I'd like to give a special jaw-drop to the stuntmen who worked on the film. But Spielberg's goal of verisimilitude interfered in some ways with the storyline. I agree with a previous commentator who said that the handheld camera was sometimes distracting and difficult to watch. Having a bunch of extras stroll in front of the lens whenever possible did add to the sense of "you are there", but it also made it hard to concentrate on what the main characters were saying. When the screenplay suddenly jumped from cinema verite to heavy symbolism (STOP here if you don't want to learn any details about the plot), with the agonizingly slow death of an American Jewish soldier at the hands of a representative German (while a terror-struck American Goy lies powerless outside), the transition was awkward. (Though such heavyhandedness would have been annoying in almost any film.)
I didn't think the characters were particularly well-drawn--in fact, I couldn't tell them apart much of the time (though I suppose uniforms contribute to that). I got the impression Spielberg didn't want to waste too much time exploring character when he could be terrifying the viewer. In fact, I think some of the film was sadistic, though I'm sure Spielberg would argue that he was simply trying to show the actual horrors of war.
I could have done without the couple of misogynistic anecdotes from some of the soldiers (although probably many soldiers talk like that). One of the previous commentators thought Private Ryan's story about his brothers and a neighborhood girl showed his "humanity"--I thought it showed that he was an a**hole. I'm glad I didn't see it in the theater; I wouldn't want to know how many people laughed at that story. I was grateful for the "you-disgust-me-but-I'm-trying-not-to-be-obvious-about-it-given-the-difficu lt-situation-we-are-in" expression on Tom Hanks' character's face when he heard it. (At least, that's how I read it.)
Overall, I think Spielberg took on more than he could chew--he seemed to jump back and forth between epic reenactments and the storyline of his main characters, rather than finding a way to fuse the two into a coherent whole.
I appreciate the war movie recommendations that other commentators made, and would like to add my own: "Europa, Europa." But it's really a civilian story, so battlefield fans might not find it so interesting.