Saving Private Ryan - Review

Tom Hanks stars as Captain John Miller - who similarly to Sheen's character in Apocalypse Now, is assigned a team of soldiers, and tasked with venturing into hostile territory to find a single man. As the title suggests, that man is Private Ryan - a young soldier who recently lost all three of his brothers fighting elsewhere in the war. Fearful that Ryan's mother will get notices for all four of her children at once, Miller is dispatched to bring Ryan home safe to prevent such a tragedy. The film opens with a now famous 27-minute scene faithfully, and rather ambitiously recreating the allies' Normandy invasion on Omaha beach. The scene is a visceral experience to behold, truly implanting the viewer into the horrors of a war zone, especially so if the scene is watched with surround sound. From there, we follow Miller and his team through war-torn france, as they search for Ryan while attempting to stay alive. Tom Sizemore, Ted Danson, Jeremy Davies, Matt Damon, Nathan Fillon, and Paul Giamatti are some of the names in the mammoth cast - which unfortunately, are rarely developed to any emotional satisfaction. Scene after scene, our heroes are risking their lives, and dying it battle - but only a select few actually receive any back-story, making the middle of the film feel more like a video game than an Academy Award winning drama. The film act however brings together the survivors in one final fictional battle against the Germans - in an amazingly impressive sequence that combines all of the incredible editing and camera-work of the beachhead assault with the emotional development of Miller's character - making for a gut-wrenching and entertaining battle. In a present-day setting that book-ends the film, it's difficult not to well-up as we witness a veteran thanking the graves of his friends who died in battle over 50 years ago. As always Hanks is the embodiment of talent and class, bringing to life a nuanced solider who must struggle with his thoughts of returning home, and keeping his company alive. Spielberg won his second Academy Award for directing here, which is of course more than well-deserved - everything from the chaotic battle scenes to the quiet moments of dialog are carefully choreographed and filmed - ensuring the audience never feels lost during the movie's 169-minute run time. If you ever wanted to understand or appreciate the glory and disaster of war from the comfort of your own home, you need not look further than "Saving Private Ryan", "War personified, an emotional quest." - Well, those are my thoughts on the movie, now let's see what you had to say in the YouTube comments. Back again, the rate-o-matic to score "Saving Private Ryan"... a NINE and a TEN. This film is perhaps the very best war movie ever made... but it was lacking just a bit of cohesion in the first half of the movie for me to score it a perfect ten... but I thought it was most certainly AWESOME. Few of you had anything negative to say, praising this movie for it's effects, characters, and battle-scenes, rating it AMAZING.