The film, starring Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Sally Kirkland and Elliott Gould, is bloodier and bawdier than the TV show about a medical unit serving during the Korean war. The film gets a little silly during the football game climax, but it also manages to make heroes out of ordinary people thrust into an insane situation. The Rangers led by Tom Hanks are brave and well-trained. Their motives for accepting the mission of saving Private Ryan aren't all that pure. The Americans also battled each other, their own fear, etc.
War is hell.
The first 20 minutes, as bloody and difficult to watch as everyone says, also may be the most propaganda-free portrayal of what happened at Normandy ever captured on film. It's an Oliver Stone film, so take it with a grain of salt. But it also hints at the shabby treatment some of our Vietnam veterans received once they came home. Both of these albums have been out since 1998. But there has to be someone out there who is just now, two years after they have been released, getting around to the record store.