Perhaps this movie lacks a true soul

Rating: 7/10 (7 August 1998)

I found "Saving Private Ryan" rather elementary. Yes, it makes me proud to be an American, but many movies do that ("Primary Colors" is a better, and more recent, standout), and Spielberg seems to be interpreting the horrors of war while rarely showing the human element behind it, and consequently dulls the impact of the message: War is very, very bad. The film lacks intelligence, and perhaps lacks a soul as well, despite its patriotic fervor. Tom Hanks is quite good, though, as the tortured captain whose face is a mask of quiet despair. In one scene, where the soldiers under his command want to shoot a German prisoner, Hanks turns away, trying to become blind to it all. His performance and the dazzling cinematography make up for a so-so story and a script containing approximately fifteen coherent sentences (still five or six more than "Close Encounters," though ).