Saving Private Ryan (1998)

If you speak about this movie to anyone, they will all hail the opening scene. I had actually written an intro to this post on how cool the opening is. But wait. The opening scene is an absolute waste of space. Dreary, unnecessary and dumb. No, I haven't lost my mind. I just forgot. The opening scene is an old wanker in a sports jacket crying by a lawn with his family looking worried and caring (not to mention even more unnecessary) in the background. God, I abhor Spielberg for those scenes. Git.

Anyhow. After pissing me off immensely, Spielberg makes it all good with the mentioned landing in Normandy. Goodness, gracious what a war spectacle. More horrifying, direct and suspenseful than anything that had ever been shown before. Bloody and detailed without looking gory, and not without a sense of morbid humor and irony. With just the right pinch of heroism for it to be believable. Truly one of the most massive war scenes ever made. Kudos.

After this, it's mostly a gristly roadtrip. The kind without babes. And interest fades for a while. Until Spielberg shows towards the very end that he is just as good setting up a small battle in a restricted area, with smart guerrilla tactics and old-school military creativity on low tech in a stressful situation as he is with the big cannons. You take what you have. It's clever, riveting and extremely entertaining.

Don't get me wrong. As a war movie, it works. But Spielberg is a sucker for melodrama and takes it a bit too far quite a few times. The aforementioned old geezer the worst example, but there are more. The whole premise of the film is a mother having lost 4 sons, and the army sending a whole bunch to die to rescue a fifth. Spielberg takes the time to show just enough personality of each and every one in the team before they get to die heroically. While saying something brave, usually.

The cast is amazing. Not just because Spielberg uses known actors, but because he uses good actors. Hell, even Vin Diesel is cast well here. Giamatti, Fillion, Farina, Danson. They all bring a little extra to their scenes, taking some much needed focus away from Tom Hanks. He does a great figure here, but it's not about him and a volleyball, so contributions are much wanted. As for his crew, they are a bit more stereotypical, as one would expect from a Spielberg-bunch.

This flick steals quite a bit. But let's face it. Many war-movies have been made. It's impossible to be 100% original. So you can see Full Metal Jacket (though Spielberg is much more PG than Kubrick), Memphis Belle, Enemy at the Gates and many more rewritten here. Not badly, just usually not as good as the original.

John Williams lets me down here with a rather mediocre score. Personally I think I'd rather give Beltrami or Newton-Howard a go. Perhaps even Gregson-Williams.

But there is a gem of a scene here. Before the last battle, where the crew are waiting for all hell to break loose and finds solace in the words of Edith Piaf, as translated by their corporal. A lovely little thing, showing what a quality director Spielberg can be.

This is a very good war-film with some absolutely astonishing scenes. I can watch those 3 over and over again. As for the rest of it, it's just not interesting and original enough to do full justice to the fab 3.


7/10