Best war film I've seen

Rating: Null/10 (13 November 2001)

I admit I haven't seen the Thin Red Line that others rave about. Personally, I thought this was the best war film I've seen, but that's comparing it to mostly old WW2 movies starring John Wayne and the like. I won't go into details of how this is good because so many people say it so much better. The realism of battle, the pain, the desperation of men who know they are dying, the suddenness of death . . .all of that was just fantastic.
However, this is not a perfect movie. The characters are undeveloped and two dimensional (Giovanni Ribisi came the closest to giving his character more dimension in his one tiny little moment in a bombed out church), though that didn't bother me. The emphasis was really on the battle scenes. Tom Sizemore, although we know next to nothing about his character, also gave a performance of some depth. Tom Hanks character, who was supposed to be so secretive, was the only one we learn about, and that wasn't that interesting. However, I don't think it was necessary to know the background of each character in this movie.
The worst character in the movie is Matt Damon's Private Ryan. He was so blahhhhhh.
The worst part of the movie is the beginning and end, which begins with an old Private Ryan having a "flashback" of things he didn't actually witness (how does that happen ?) and ends witha typical Speilberg like speech/lesson. Yawn.