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Agree to an extent

The opening and closing scenes--the aged Ryan visiting the memorial--is enept and cloying and misleading, since it opens by suggesting that this old veteran had been among those whom we soon watch storming the beach on D-Day (Ryan was dropped behind enemy lines). This is typical late Spielberg and quite unfortunate.

I disagree with your assessment of the landing scene. It's perfectly gritty and visceral not only visually but in terms of the sound editing (I've talked to vets who were equally impressed with the film's actually having captured what it sounds like when a body's hit by a bullet) and quite arful for that. The rest of the film, with few minor exceptions, is an exercise in war-film formulism. The first twenty minutes make, in my opinion, one of the most potent anti-war statements available simply for showing rather than, as The Thin Red Line tried to do, telling. The rest of the film undermines that, if that doesn't undermine the valor and jingoism of the rest of the film.


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