This is the best war film I've ever seen, next after The Thin Red Line. It's very seldom I cry watching a film but I could not stop myself this time. A fantastic film, the only thing which I found dissapointing was Min-sik Choi having only a tiny part of the film.
It's good. Sure we have to suspend some disbelief, but if there wasn't such appropriately excessive dramatic coincedences/fortuitous happenings, I suppose it would be half the film. And yes, I admit I did weep. War films, of course, can't merely be about an individual sleeping in their own dirt, starving, and then being suddenly shot, it just wouldn't make for a good story.
Having said that, the very premise of saving Private Ryan is so utterly absurd that it detracts somewhat from the overall quality, precisely because it becomes that bit more difficult to suspend disbelief, as such any truly involving drama or story gives way to visual spectacle and the standard demise of the characters we had grown familiar with (present in pretty much every war film), which makes for a seemingly more shallow movie than many other war films.
To prevent this from becoming an incoherent stream of my conscious thoughts on war films (thought I'd comment on SPR because it's probably most people's default choice of best war film) as they come to me, I'll just end by saying: Platoon is my favourite war film.
Don't even start with SPR. People should understand that The Thin Red Line is sooo much better. SPR has a fabolous opening scene, the bullets through the helmets in the water is really cool. But The Thin Red Line is a god damn masterpiece!