in ref. to Alex Iosjpe comments

Rating: Null/10 (22 December 1998)

If as Alex Iosjpe says "Saving Private Ryan" pre-empts the justification for anyone ever again making a war film (and with specific reference here to the imminent arrival of "The Thin Red Line") because "Saving P.R." tells it all, then "Saving P.R." should never have been made. Because 68 years ago in "All Quiet on the Western Front" (based on the Erich Marie Remarque novel) we had an even more deeply penetrating telling about war; and with not the sentimental patriotism laced into it that with his eye ever more strongly focused on box office receipts than on telling the truth Spielberg could not resist as a hedge on what otherwise could have been his more honest anti-war pitch. So hurrah for Terrence Mallick's having a go at it again, the telling of what can never be told well enough or truly enough for it to ever be fully understood! And if it's a truer go-at-it than Spelberg's then a double hurrah for Mallick!!