74%

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2014)

All in all, I think this film is definitely one of the finer war films to have come out of the post "Saving Private Ryan" era; even if, in places, it is contrary to fact
I first watched this film at quite a young age, at that age you can be quite impressionable, and seeing as it was one of the first (of many) war films I would watch, it really set the standard as to what I expected in a war film.
Visually this film is stunning and deserves its Directing Oscar as well as its cinematography nom. I enjoyed its fast, jittery camera movement and thought this added to the overall pace of the film as well as helping to emphasise the instability of the situation and underlying potential of mass destruction. Some scenes,however, do tend to lack in any interesting camera positioning to sink your teeth into and rely too heavily on the work of the camera operator doing his best to add tension. For this reason some scenes (especially those when the characters are running through empty buildings feel a bit unnatural and staged due to the simple angles with the subjects seeming to disappear into the background.
I have read many reviews on this site criticising the scripts lack of story, complaining the characters wonder from scenario to scenario without further explanation or any side stories to fill in the gaps. Some argue that this just allows the writer to go completely wild and stage awful situations that characters find themselves in without a more refined purpose. I, however, enjoy how freely the director can jump around without the restraint of delivering an overall meaning to the film. Often war films get quite bogged down in scenes of useless dialogue which really just result in the general feeling that war is a bad thing. We already know this and are not going to forget about it any time soon. This film ignores the futile scrap for morale comfort and concentrates on other themes which are frankly more entertaining.
I enjoyed in part the performances of the actors in this film, having said this I did feel the hefty weight of the stereotypical performance given by every single other actor who has ever tried to play a US soldier bearing down on these characters shoulders. It is such a difficult generality for an actor playing a soldier to get away from, this half-way house between outward audacity and bravery and inward insecurity and has been done badly so often that it is hard to think how else to act when in these situations.
So these are a few of my views,cheers for reading.