Director: Spielberg

[Strangler Lewis]

Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket

Saving Private Ryan - Only the first twenty minutes are good. The rest is quite boring.

Yes, that hand-to-hand fight to the death between the Jewish soldier and Steamboat Willie: wake me when it's over.

I never found Private Ryan boring, but it did meander from its theme. When they get their mission, it starts out as "Is it worth great cost to save one of your own?" (Maybe.) After they find Ryan, it morphs into "Is it worth great cost to spare one of your enemy?" (No. See, Munich.) In between, there was a bunch of generic battle stuff that didn't seem especially relevant to either theme, except perhaps to play up the difference between anonymous killing and personal killing.

And no self-respecting movie should end with a shot of the American flag waving.