Beyond belief!

Rating: Null/10 (21 December 2008)

Saving Private Ryan: a monument of a film to the most egregious miss-planning of the second world war by a stupid military leadership who put thousands of men on a hot-beach without any air support or destroyer big-guns covering the landing - Monty/Eisenhower should have been horse whipped for this atrocity!
Of course Spielberg panders to this memorial-to-democracy and shows the beach scene in all its horror - the bloody waves particularly jarring. After the actual reenactment, Spielberg strolls into a fiction where a troop led by Hanks seeks out Private Ryan (parachuted behind German lines and now lost) to return him to his Mom, as his 3 brothers have been recently killed in other theater Allied errors. 'Lets not leave Mom bereft of sons' the word from the highest admin. officer in the Allied force. As an aside, my Grandmother lost all six of her brothers in the First World War, and her only two sons in WW2 with nothing more that a series of belated condolence letters from the DOD.
So, off goes 'Captain' Hanks and his motley crew on their 'highest-echelon priority' army mission - two separate incidents along the way diminish the unit by the time they catch up with 'Private' Ryan (Damon), who in no uncertain terms tells Hanks he has his-mission and will stay with his unit and defend a bridge! In the proper-Army, at this point the Captain would have clapped Ryan in irons for insubordination and returned him unceremoniously to the brig for court marshal - Spielberg permits 'none of this' as Hanks and his, now hapless, unit must face a couple of German Tiger tanks and 15 German foot soldiers equipped with serious hardware - our hero's defend with: machine gun, rifles (a pretty good sniper), sidearms and the makings of 'sticky bombs' - socks filled with explosives and covered with 'convenient' axle grease, so they will 'stick' to tank Armour. (The guys are now fighting sock-less, duh!) The battle commences - as furious as the beach scenes - and all in Hanks unit are killed. Ryan survives without a scratch, of course! Hanks the last to die (down to a sidearm now) as an Allied fighter drops a precision-bomb on the remaining tank that made it to the bridge - directly onto its turret, disabling it.
Truly beyond-belief: precision bombing from WW2 fighters is utter nonsense, and where were these guys during the 'landing on the beach?'; why was Ryan not promptly removed from theater? i.e. why was US Army discipline a turkey shoot after the beach landing?
Then, of course, we are treated to a return to the opening - a decrepit old man (Ryan now, we understand, we thought it was a geriatric Hanks at the beginning?) in a military graveyard (San Diego Pacific overlook, I think?) -- the surest testament to the stupidity of War -- looking for Hank's grave. Ryan asks his wife '... if he was a good man'? Clearly, this miscreant should have been hung or shot back in '44!
Production Notes:
Score inspired by the opening: "Fanfare for the Common Man", Aaron Copland which of course quickly descended into John Williams patented nonsense, yet again.
Spielberg, wooden and pandering for cheap emotion as always, other than the action scenes which were probably 'actioned' by Spielberg's tasking of the 10 assistant directors on the piece.
The beach scene (reality, it happened of course) pointless beyond belief and an embarrassment to mankind - what military leader would put men onto a hot-beach without air support or 10" guns blazing from warships offshore? A monumental blunder! Spielberg has Hanks report on the 35 of his men killed after we have see every one hit, egregious! Surround Foley outstanding, as expected.
Character assassinations: excellent performance from Tom Sizemore (disciplined, got his Blackhawk Down chops here) and Barry Pepper* (sniper); Hanks quite adequate as Captain, but predictably too democratic to survive; Adam Goldberg (first guy to break down) should have been spared from doing the 'Juden' thing to German POW's; Giovanni Ribisi underused as was Paul Giammati & Dennis Farina; Jeremy Davies' character, the last guy you would want around; Ed Burns superfluous, as was Ted Danson; Vin Diesel a joke to his end.
* this role cribbed from Sniper: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108171/ but Pepper's role a template for 'Enemy at the Gates': http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0215750/ the grisly dueling-snipers flick.
After a film like this is released to such accolades (sic), why would family-men be put in harms-way ever again? War=stupidity!