How to review something that leaves the viewer speechless?

Rating: 10/10 (26 June 2002)

I never knew. I knew that my grandfathers' generation did remarkable things during the war, but I never knew. I knew that we fought a tough battle during D-Day, but I never knew. I knew that people risked, and lost, their lives to fight for our freedom, but I never knew.
The reason why this movie is important, especially to my gen-x generation, is that none of us really knew what others sacrificed for our freedom.
I walked out of this movie and saw an elder gentleman as I was walking out. I thanked him. After viewing the movie, I went to my car and just rode around for a while, collecting my thoughts. If this movie does not give you a punch-in-the-gut feeling after walking out, then you have missed the point. The point is plain and simple, ordinary people did extraordinary things so that we have the right to be free. Some of my generation take these rights for granted. I did. I no longer do.
The rest of this, for the most part, goes into why I disagree with others who did not like this movie. By doing this, I hope that I have also explained why I DO like this movie. I have heard many of the complaints about this movie. I disagree with just about every one of them. I add a disclaimer about this at the end.
I have heard that this movie is not "anti-war" enough, that "The Thin Red Line" is a much better anti-war movie. This misses the point of the movie. The movie is not essentially anti-war. It is about the sacrifices that others made to give us our freedoms.
I have heard that this movie is too gruesome. I can understand why people say this. But, in order to portray truthfully, the bravery that others made on our behalf, the movie needs to be gorry. I believe that this movie was not so much written for the WWII generation, but for their children, grandchildren, and on down the line. We NEED to understand what others have done.
Some have claimed that the movie, beyond the first 20 minutes, does not have enough action. The movie is not an action epic, beyond the first twenty minutes and is not meant to be. The movie is meant to display that these people were ordinary. This is called character development. The characters are not as developed as some would wish, but I believe Spielberg did this with a purpose. The characters are developed to the point that we know that they are ordinary. We are supposed to see that they are just like us (the generations after WWII), yet they did extraordinary things.
Some have claimed that the characters are too stereotypic. Well, we are a stereotypic society. We have cultures from all over the world, and they all fought in WWII. While many units may have been homogeneous, many were not. There are no African-Americans in the story, and Spielberg did hold true to the realism there as, sadly, African Americans were segregated from fighting with white soldiers.
Some have said that this another example of Americans being jingoistic. Well, we did fight separately from other countries' units. Spielberg did not say that other countries did not fight in the war, but this movie would have been twenty hours long if we chronicled each countries' contributions. Beside that, Spielberg is American, and made a film about the contributions that Americans made. Why others feel that he should make a movie about each countries' contributions is beyond me. If he does, that is his prerogative. If a French director makes a movie about the French resistance, I say, "Good job," not "What about America?"
Finally, after fighting off attack after attack, I wish to say, that is fine. That is your right, thanks to the bravery of others. I only wish to say that I hope that those who dislike this movie are still able to see the efforts that others made to give us this right.
PS: Thank you Poppop!