great movie, but not as anti-war as people claim

Rating: 7/10 (20 March 2000)

Certainly, SPR is powerful, mind-numbing stuff, but so are most decent war movies if you spend three hours in the cinema. Maybe it was just that the beginning was so hyped that it didn't quite have the impact I was expecting, although a few fantastic moments did stand out (the "lucky guy" who's helmet gets scratched by a bullet, for example). The problem is that for a movie which is so brutally honest in its depiction of the horrors of battle, the film is lazy to the point of dishonesty in so many other areas and insodoing it undermines its credentials as an antiwar film.
To start with a point made in a number of other reviews, the Germans are utterly unsympathetic. The one German we feel sorry for turns out to be a real baddie, eager to kill the heroic Americans as soon as he gets the chance. The result is a movie whose values are completely the wrong way round - the war was rightful insofar as it attempted to check an aggresive and horrifically inhumane regime. It wasn't justified of itself by American patriotism, rather, patriotism provided a powerful rallying point. Yet the Stars and Stripes are far more redolent of America than of liberty itself, in spite of the perceived American monopoly on freedom. By making the Americans heroic and the Germans either faceless or treacherous, by excluding the involvement of Canadian, British and British Imperial troops, and by the emphasis on the worshipful Flag, Spielberg turned the second world war into a matter of Americans vs Germans, American patriotism vs German nationalism, rather than right vs wrong. It was the noblest of sacrifices for these men to die in a country that was halfway round the world from their homes. Many, probably most, fought for their country rather than for France, or Poland or for any ideal of liberty, but if you argue that patriotism actually justified the war, then you're back to "Dulce et decorum est". SPR certainly doesn't make war "dulce", but it comes pretty close to making patriotism "decorum", when this is precisely what many of the vilified Germans were fighting for.
There are other problems with the film, with its story and characterisation. Most, however, are covered in other reviews. One thing, though: the film was much praised because all of the major protagonists are terrified by war. Yet, the same old cliche remains - the weak link in the team who is too scared to fight, but ends up finding his courage (admittedly after one of the most brilliant scenes in any war movie, where the knife fight is happening while the cowardly soldier waits on the stair). It's just a bit disappointing. So many things in SPR are brilliant and uncompromising (like the knife fight, people blowing themselves up with their own mines etc.) that all the cop-outs and compromises are additionally galling. A pity.