saving private propaganda.

Rating: Null/10 (12 January 2004)

There must be a certain element, a certain unspoken magic when a particular film gets heaped with such a volume of praise and emotion from its teary eyed and awe-struck audiences. Saving private ryan has, over the years, been one of those films. The peculiar thing is that it doesn't deserve much praise or much of an investment of emotion.
Yes the famous omaha beach sequence is impressive. Limbs are blown off, and men hold in their innards while crying for their mothers, etc. Guess what kiddies, has war ever suggested to be otherwise? Is this one scene enough to pass off the rest of the 2 and a half hours of the film? The answer is no. Just because one scene is technically brilliant, does not mean that somehow the entire film has justifiably earned the right to be called one of the greatest war films of all time. But again and again, whenever i hear this film being discussed, the only scene that comes up is the first 25 minute invasion sequence.
The rest of this film was personally to me, a total wasted opportunity. For one thing, how was it possible for hanks and his 1950's ww2 cliched troupe, to casually stroll through a french field? This early into d-day, the bocage areas around france were still full of threatening german units, long from being reduced. Makes no sense.
The biggest failure of this film was, predictably, its childish portrayal of german troops. Again and again, i cringed at how pathetically inept they acted. That last battle scene was something straight out of a sgt. rock comic. Wave after wave of germans just run into fire, not taking defensive positions until about 2/3 of them are lying dead in the normandy sun. Somehow hanks and his buddies always seemingly dance their way out of oncoming bullets. The machine gunner in the tiger was seemingly to high on hashish to fire at the americans. There is also no way in hell a sticky bomb would take the treads off of a tiger. And why the hell did all the german troops have shaved heads??? Not from the photos i've seen.
But i did love the moral message of the film, and perhaps this is why the american public who loved this film so willingly gave spielberg their hearts. It doesn't matter that this film consisted of a script so simplistic, that it could have been written by a high school sophomore working on a ww2 final essay. Makes no difference. The message we all wanna hear is, America is good, everyone else is bad. We don't do bad things, noooo sirry. We only get into wars to stop tyranny. Well, there are some of us who would contest that...
peace.