Hard to Believe this did not Win the Oscar

Rating: 9/10 (1 April 2019)

Incredibly harrowing and unrelenting look at the horrors of war filmed with hand held cameras and using film stock and lenses that give it both a documentary and historical feel in an attempt to give the audience some sort of visceral impression of what it might have been like to be there on the beaches of Normandy. The audience is dragged right into the film and with only a few slow scenes you soon discover that three somewhat grueling hours have passed.
Some of the characters are somewhat cliched, in that they are stereotypical for war movies which I think may be intentional on the part of Spielberg to give more impact to his vision by making the characters familiar to the audience. Further it is also somewhat reminiscent of other recent war movies like Platoon in it depictions of the horrors of war, but I though it went even a step further in that it never tries to make the combat in any way poetic. The music isn't used in the same way or does it rely on voice over's or any other cinematic tools to make the combat scenes any less horrifying.
I found this to be perhaps Tom Hank's best performance and although he would nominated for an Oscar he would not win, perhaps his two fairly recent Oscars had some effect. The rest of the cast is uniformly strong and effective, there are some great cameos and the film served to accelerate the careers of relative newcomers Vin Diesel, Barry Pepper and Edward Burns as well as some of the other more experienced cast members.
While I don't believe this was Spielberg's best (Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Schindler's List) and he does use a few unnecessary directorial tricks this is still a really great film that should have won the Oscar for Best Picture. It's not a film for the faint of heart but it is a very powerful film that effectively delivers the directors vision. The film would secure Spielberg an Oscar for Best Director among its 5 wins and 11 nominations.