A very enjoyable if flawed war movie.
If you want a war film that offers something new or thought provoking, it is best to look somewhere else, but if you want one that is definitely an enjoyable watch this is a darn good choice. As should be excepted from a movie directed by Roland Emmerich the action scenes were fantastic. The visual effects work nearly perfectly and these scenes never lose their sense of pure excitement. The excellence of the action scenes did not take me by surprise, but the effectiveness of one of the main characters did. This character was that of Dick Best (Ed Sherkin). This character is a very engaging and human character that manages at the same time to be as cool as any character in a war movie could be. Equally great but given less time is his wife Anne (Mandy Moore), who provides both some of the film's funniest and most touching moments in her too brief screen time. It is unfortunate that the other characters couldn't be as fleshed out as these two are, but honestly the film has too many important characters to delve into all of them in its less than two and a half hour running time. However all the characters are likable enough for us to enjoy watching them and there is not a weak link in this film's excellent cast.
While the film is often given cliché moments and bits of dialogue, the film overcomes this with pure sincerity. You can tell that the filmmakers really appreciate the men who fought this battle and the whole film comes off as a very heartfelt tribute to them. This gives the film a power and a likability even its most cliché scenes. I don't see how someone could go home from watching this film and not feel a sense of awe and wonder at what these brave men faced. It is too rare these days to get a war film with this strong of a sense of sincerity and it was certainly greatly appreciated by me.
To be fair this film covers too much history to truly fit into its running time. Because of this many important parts of the true story don't get the true attention they deserve. Also because of this I will suggest that it is best to go into this film with somewhat of a knowledge of World War 2 so the weight of certain points of the story aren't lost on you with the fact that they are given not enough time.
Overall this is a very heartfelt and fun movie that I definitely recommend to war movie fans, even if it is not without its faults.
-Michael J. Ruhland
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