To these guy's point, it is a very dramatic, mostly accurate portrail of the violence of war.  The opening invasion scene made me sick to my stomach.
(In a world where movies like SAW do well, though, I don't know that the violence is something that will affect the younger set.  It might seem tame by comparison . . . but I digress.)
When I saw Saving Private Ryan in the theater, I couldn't get myself to leave when the credits were rolling.  When the lights finally came up, there were three older gentlemen and their wives still in the theater with me.  I assume they were WW2 vets.  All of them were crying.  I think that is as good an indication as any to the realism of the film, and the heart-rending sentiment at the end.
I did rent it at one point, and on the small screen it loses a lot of it's impact, but still well worth the time.
This, on the other hand . . . 
Originally posted by Tac 
Also recomend The Thin Red Line. Less graphic in its violence but no less dramatic. 
 I have to disagree.  To me, the Thin Red Line seemed too much like a whiney "Apocolypse Now" type Vietnam flick set (or rather mis-set) in WWII.  I actually found it quite disappointing.  But who knows, maybe I couldn't get past the fact that Sean Penn was in it . . .