still, it does seem that they could have looked at more

Rating: 7/10 (19 May 2006)

I would have given "Saving Private Ryan" a higher score had it looked at more issues abundant during WWII (they could have focused on the various roles that each country specifically played in the war). But don't get me wrong: watching the movie, you can literally feel the bullets hitting you. Tom Hanks commands as strong a performance as we can expect him to, and the rest of the cast also does quite well.
I guess that if the movie has any problems, it's in the characters themselves. Aside from the fact that the movie pretty much makes all Americans out to be good and all Germans out to be bad, the Americans are basically clichés. They're all wholesome, hard-working guys out to make something of themselves. Moreover, there's the wise-guy New Yorker and the cowpoke Southerner, and Pvt. Ryan comes from Iowa (read: America's heartland).
But otherwise, it's a very good movie, and it goes to show what an incredible director Steven Spielberg is (although I still wouldn't have given the movie Best Picture; I would have given that to "Life is Beautiful"). Also starring Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, Matt Damon, Ted Danson, Paul Giamatti and Dennis Farina.