Don't be afraid to criticize this film! You can still be patriotic and not like it.

Rating: 2/10 (27 November 2005)

Spielberg has claimed in interviews that one of his purposes in making Saving Private Ryan was to specifically honor the soldiers who fought that war; a noble sentiment. But being a film buff, you'd think Spielberg would be familiar with the constant stream of films from the 40's through the 50's into the 60's and beyond including TV shows that did just that. It makes me wonder if he had another purpose in making Saving Private Ryan.
He does. In the excellent series of interview DVD's put out by the American Film Institute titled The Directors, in the episode devoted to Spielberg he claims that he wanted to make Saving Private Ryan with a documentary style eschewing the Chapman Cranes and Steadicam approach to big budget film-making. He wanted the film to look exactly like a war photographer would have shot it had he been at Omaha Beach.
Clearly, one look at the opening beach sequence shows he succeeded in that desire. But if Chapman cranes and Steadicams are not realistic, is artificially slowing down the film OK? How about de-saturating the color out of the film to make it almost seem black and white? What about heavily manipulating the soundtrack? Does war really exist in Dolby 5.1 Sound? I mean, what are we REALLY watching here? What has Spielberg done with Saving Private Ryan other than simply add an element of "Chainsaw Massacre Movie" gore to the war film, a genre that is surprisingly non-gory. But the thing that annoys me most about Saving Private Ryan is something that is no real fault of the film. It's the way so many people fatuously praise the film as being "realistic". A bunch of different critics even stated that this film "avoids all the clichés" usually associated with WWII films.
Avoids clichés? Have any of you seen it? Well, lets just start with the squad who goes after Private Ryan in the film, do we have the tough, but decent guy from the Midwest? Check, Tom Hanks! Do we have a vaguely ethnic type? Check, Vin Diesel as Caparzo. How about the young coward who later on shows courage? Check with Jeremy Davies character. What about the wise guy from New York? Check with Ed Burns. Did we forget the country boy sharpshooter? No, we have Barry Pepper as a cross kissing sniper. You may just as well have cast Anthony Quinn, Wally Cassel, William Bendix, Lloyd Nolan and Richard Jaeckel. Certainly, John Wayne would have been perfect for the Tom Hanks role.
Staying with realism, does Spielberg even get the facts of Omaha Beach right? The real plan was for the men to secure the beach and then have bulldozers knock down the sea wall. Tanks would then blast through German fortifications and then the men would follow the tanks. What really happened was that the water and tides were unexpectedly strong and the men were washed completely off course. That's why they landed directly in front of German machine gun nests; they certainly weren't heading there on purpose. After suffering terrible human losses and with the water being too deep for the tanks, (only 2 of the 29 tanks ever made it), the surviving men waited at the sea wall for five or six hours until German fire had died down and then they climbed up the sides of the bluffs, double-backed and attacked the Germans from behind, eventually over running them. That's what really happened. I found that out by simply looking this battle up in the Encyclopedia Britannica. Apparently, that is something no one at Paramount Pictures did because that is not what happens in the "realistic" Saving Private Ryan.
Spielberg presents the Omaha Beach slaughter as if this is what happened all over on D-Day. Again, not true, in fact, troop casualties were much less than expected. Yes, more than 2000 soldiers died at Omaha Beach, which saw the fiercest fighting and was a terrible slaughter, but a fifteen miles down the coastline at Utah Beach, they suffered less than 200 casualties and even less to the north at Juno and Gold beaches. I'm not trying to be disingenuous here. I know Saving Private Ryan was about this specific group going into this particular battle, but overall, what was presented in Saving Private Ryan is not what most soldiers faced that day.
But what is really unforgivable to me, if you watch Saving Private Ryan, is you will get no sense that anybody other than Americans were involved in this action. Remember, it was called The Allied Invasion, not The American Invasion, which might explain why Saving Private Ryan is hailed as being accurate over here, but in other countries, notably Britain and Canada, who also lost soldiers that day, they find this film laughable.
Nobody minds that Spielberg fudged things historical in order to make a dramatic movie. But pretending you didn't is wrong. And yes, just because Paramount Pictures says this is the way it happened, don't make it so. Saving Private Ryan is clearly a well-intentioned film and was made with skill and care. But, ultimately it is nothing more than a feel good picture, full of flag waving banalities and video game style violence. It is World War II: The Ride. Steven Spielberg has made a gripping and entertaining film with Saving Private Ryan. But that's all. Let's save our Medals of Honor for those who show bravery in an actual war.