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Starring Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel,
Matt Damon, Jeremy Davies, Paul Giamatti, Ted Danson, Dennis Farina. Directed by Steven Spielberg.
On Normandy, an older World War 2 veteran visits the rows of crosses of fallen countrymen he served with. Moved by the experience he remembers back ... It's D-Day and the U.S. troops are storming the beach. And they are being slaughtered. Captain John Miller (Hanks) assembles some of his own and some other men who have survived, and eventually they break through and gain a foothold in Northern France. After the harrowing battle, Miller is given a new assignment. A Private James Ryan had all three of his brothers killed in action. Miller and a select group of men are ordered to retrieve Private Ryan, who landed behind enemy lines and could be anywhere. He takes with him wisecracking Brooklynite Private Rieben (Burns), a bible-quoting expert sniper (Pepper), tough New Yorker Mellish (Goldberg) and nervous translator Corporal Upham (Davies) among the eight man patrol. And they aren't that enthusiastic to go. They wonder why they should be risking their lives running around France to find one guy. What makes his life more important than anyone elses? After several false starts, battles with enemy troops and several members of the platoon getting killed, they find Private Ryan and his company defending a bridge from the Germans. Miller tells Ryan he's got a ticket home, but Ryan refuses to abandon his comrades. So Miller and the boys bunker down with Ryan's company, and wait for the Germans and their tanks to show up for a fight to the finish. The initial battle takes about 25 minutes, and it is non-stop terror. The film has had the colour reduced and the angle of cameras reduced to that used in World War 2. The filming is done with hand held cameras, shot on the run and in the middle of gunfire. You genuinely feel you are in the middle of the action. The violence is brutally graphic. Men are cut in half. One has his arm shot off, so he picks it up and carries it with him. The innerds of men ooze out after they are blown up, and they're still alive to watch. Bloods spurts everywhere, the water on the beach red with it. Much of the dialogue is missed because it is drowned out by the explosions and gun fire surrounding the soldiers. It is as technically brilliant a sequence as I've seen. The film ends with similar spectacular action during the fight at the bridge. In between (about 2 hours of it) is a journey the soldiers take into the French countryside trying to find Ryan. There are many great and harrowing moments in between. A young French girl is given to a soldier for protection by her family, but moments later he is cut down by a German sniper, and the little girl is separated from her family, only able to see and scream at each other. When it is over and she is reunited, she angrily beats on her father, unhappy he gave her away, even though he was trying to protect her. After one of the platoon is killed while taking a German position in the countryside, a German prisoner pleads for his life when the angry platoon wants to kill her, and is only saved when Upham pleads for his life. Guess who shows up with the Germans, guns ablazing, in the battle at the bridge? The performances are solid. It's tough to see past Hanks usual mannerisms (and Forrest Gump), but you do, and he is quite good as the regular everyday guy who is thrust into the war, struggling to overcome his fear and self-doubt as he sends men to die in battle. Each of the others are quite credible soldiers, with Sizemore shining above the rest. But the performances are secondary - the action is foremost. The film's is pushing the theme that war is hell. No kidding. It dispels the notions of glory and courage. The soldiers are scared to death, but act courageously because they have to survive. And soldiers do not always act with honour - guys who surrender after just shooting at you, and killing your friends in the process, may be executed on the spot, despite the Geneva convention. The problem with the film is that it is a collection of brilliant sequences that don't fully gel together as a film. It seems the point of the film is in depicting the brutal savagery of war, instead of the quest to save a soldier. But Saving Private Ryan is a exceptional illustration of the brutality of war, and of technically superior moviemaking.   
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