Simply, the most visceral movie ever made

Rating: Null/10 (2 December 2000)

All I can say about this movie is that it blows away any other war movie. It is accessibly to anyone who watches it, from a high-school drop out factory worker to some rich guy with a doctorate in film studies, it leaves you with an impression that only a movie could deliver: "This is what it was like."
Some pople may not know this, but the plot of the movie is based on an extraction of what almost happened. One single mother sent her four sons into the war, and, on one day, recieved death notices for three of them (two died on D-Day, one was lost and presumed killed in the Pacific theatre, though he was actually captured and returned at the end of the war). The U.S. Army sent the last son home for the same reasons as in the movie. Fortunately, in reality, a chaplain found the homeward-bound GI very quickly. The movie asks, what would have happened had he not been so accessible?
Watching this film, it really gives you more an idea of what the war was like. I'm a history major, and my focus is on the Second World War; I've read at many dozens of books on the war, and written more than a few essays, including several on D-Day itself. Still, nothing brought me closer to a visceral understanding than this movie. Everything is so real, from the opening sequence, to the more subtle body of the movie (the two times city-fighting in the French town are amazing). It does not rely on any pansy artistic nonsense in the directing to make its point (as the far inferior "Thing Red Line" does), it simply presents the reality.
To address some of the complaints of the movie:
The lack of other nationalities is understandable. Normandy was divided into five zones, two of them were American, it is in one of those two that the story takes place. Simple. Also, the man the story is based on was American, so that's were he is in the movie. And, to be honest, the American landings on Utah and Omaha beaches were more exciting than the Canadian one of Juno beach and the British ones on Gold and Sword beaches. This was true because the Commonwealth armies were competent; the Americans messed up by over-planning their landings and by declining to engage in pre-landing naval and aerial bombardment.
I've heard some complaints about the GI's comments on British General Montgomery, but those comments were true to what the American troops believed. Further, Montgomery, like most Allied commanders was no great shakes. Its like that in almost every field in the war. Rommel was better than Patton and Montgomery combined, Isoroku Yamamoto was ten times the admiral (and the man) Chester Nimits was, and so on. Face facts.
To close up here: That this film lost the Oscar to Shakespeare in Love is almost criminal. There can be no comparing the two films.
See this movie, if you already haven't.
**Spoilers**: The most profound part of the movie, comes with a single line. As he's dying, Tom Hank's character says to the man six men died to save, Matt Damon's character, "Earn this." The look in Damon's eyes (easily his best moment as an actor) brought a tear to my eye as the screen faded into an aged version of the same character fifty-plus years later. To live be told when you're a teenager that six people died to save you, and have to somehow live a good enough life to earn it...wow! I can hardly imagine that sort of pressure. Very intense.