The message appears to have been the first casualty

Rating: 1/10 (8 November 1999)

The action scenes in this film are superb - gritty, realistic and plain nasty. However, it remains a source of irritation that such good film making is washed down with an unhealthy dose of flag-waving patriotism. What is the message of this film? That occasionally you find SOMETHING worth fighting and dying for or that it's glorious to die for your country (read Owen for further comments on this)
Something else it has led to is a number of American reviewers giving the "We died to save your a$$es" speach. This itself is both stupid and untrue - the people who wrote those messages did nothing. America got involved only when it was directly threatened by the Nazis, and not before.
I am glad, however, that such views are in a minority from the American postings - It's a pity that the many are tarred by the few.
Millions of normal Europeans died in this war - from bombings, shootings, torture, starvation, disease and the Holocaust. This film made only a token attempt to reference this - nothing more.

The thin red line was a much better, less commercial film with that very neccessary ingredient - a message - this one remains a catalogue of missed opportunities and a formulaic start and end.