Spielberg may be master of the craft but he is never going to transcend the mechanics of movie-making. Throughout the movie, the hero uses his intelligence to survive and prevail against overwhelming odds. Neither of the world wars lent themselves to such tactical brilliance on the individual level. Individuals dug trenches and mowed each other down. Only generals (Romel in Africa, for example) had any use for tactics. So, if the war had been realistically depicted, there would have been no heroics. A war movie without heroics? Now, that would have been something to behold; it would have been a resounding flop at the box office too.
Like in every movie of the genre, there is a "kid" who has to be inculcated into the rules of the game. He starts out raw and immature and ends up being one of the men.
So, why do you keep hearing about the realism of the movie? Newspapers sell on hype. Free-lance journalists usually approach editors with a "tie-in". A movie tie-in requires no thinking on anybody's part. That explains all the derring-do about how "realistic" the movie is. It is no such thing. Spielberg's followed every rule in the movie-maker's book. Of course, you will find no one with a better grasp of the craft and few movies where it is on better display. See the movie but don't think that war is like that. It is worse because there was little that the young soldiers could do to escape being slaughtered.
