Actor
Tom Hanks and producer-director
Steven Spielberg, previously teamed for the epic WWII film
Saving Private Ryan, again join forces for this two-hour ABC TV documentary celebrating the bravery and accomplishments of wartime combat photographers. Among those interviewed are Hollywood directors
Richard Brooks and
Russ Meyer, both of whom put in hard time filming the activities of American fighting men in Europe and the Pacific. Much of the footage shown herein -- the storming of Normandy beach on D-Day, the stomach-turning charnel of the Nazi death camps, the aerial shots of the first atomic bomb explosion over Hiroshima -- is familiar, but compelling nonetheless. Hanks serves as narrator for most of the program, while historian Stephen Ambrose takes over for the final sequences. Written by film critic Richard Schickel, Shooting War originally (and significantly) aired on December 7, 2000. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide