The Movie that Gives Us an Insight to the Brutality of War.

Rating: 10/10 (17 January 2019)

Saving Private Ryan is a fictional film but has many aspects that are historically correct. The most impactful moments of this movie is the composition, scenery, acting, and direction. Saving Private Ryan is not only a good war movie, it's the best war movie created due to the composition, scenery, acting, and direction. Steven Spielberg's direction in this film is mind blowing as he uses many different aspects of point of view to change how the viewer feels during the movie.
Throughout the movie, 2 brothers are killed on the beach, another one killed somewhere else in the world. The mother of these boys is to receive all three telegrams the same day. Captain John Miller is to take a squadron and save the last Ryan brother and return him to his mother back in the US. The fact they travel for town to town looking for him and always encountering a problem is what war is about. You can't plan for everything, they get caught off guard many times and experience losses. The story is set to give a feeling of no rest. During the film, you can never relax. It is always set to make you feel nervous and worried. This film does an excellent job of showing the true harshness of war and it doesn't hold back on any aspect of just how brutal and terrifying war can be.
The soldiers in this squadron showed great courage and bravery at many points in the film ranging from the beach to the towns occupied by Germans. Many small things in the film mean a lot more once you finish the film. Understanding certain scenes takes a lot more effort to really see what its about. For example, the scene where the soldiers are counting dog tags in front of another group of soldiers walking by. First seeing this scene might not make you think about much, but as soon as Wade says, "What the hell are you doing? The whole god damn airborne is watching." Here you can clearly see how Wade notices all these soldiers walking by are seeing the squadron counting dog tags of dead men. There is at least hundreds of dog tags in the pile as well which shows how much this impacted the soldiers as they walked by. Several scenes can impact the viewer in many ways such as when they land on the beach and lots of men are slaughtered as soon as the doors open. It's a very tragic sight to see, but it alters everyone who sees the movie. Also seeing how buildings have been destroyed in the small towns kind of gives you a perspective on how brutal war can be and how innocent lives are impacted by bombs, gunfire, and tanks. Buildings are decimated to the ground and are nothing but rubble in some of the towns.
Moving onto some of the acting, Tom Hanks is a fantastic actor in this film and he has done many movies before with similar roles. In this film, he is a captain of his squadron and plays it off very well. In this film, he seems nervous at many points and does an excellent job of showing this. He has had to act this way before in the movie Captain Phillips. As he was captured in that film, he had to act scared, worried, and shocked at many points. In this movie he is able to accomplish the same task. There are several other famous actors in this film who perform very well such as Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, and Giovanni Ribisi. They all have very important roles in the film and do a fantastic job with it. Their roles range from soldiers to a Medic to Private Ryan.
The only minor flaw I can seem to find in this film is how the viewers can never relax during the film. It always an ambush, or a battle, or a rescue mission the whole time. When the fighting starts, it doesn't seem to end. This could be viewed as a good or bad thing in certain viewer's eyes. Some people might love the action, while others want to have some more back story before a battle commences.
A big theme we see in this movie is sacrifice. Many things are sacrificed to save Private Ryan ranging from soldiers lives, to the extremely dangerous task the soldiers undertake of doing, and to the soldiers who are going deep into German territory. These men sacrifice a regular war to them going behind enemy lines to recover a man they have never met before.
Finally, this film is one of the greatest war movies of all time due to the composition, scenery, acting, and direction. Everything about this film is perfect, which is why the ratings speak for themselves. I find very few people who dislike this movie. For those who think Spielberg had messed up on this film is nowhere close to what the rest of the world thinks. The ratings are extremely high for critic and audience reviews and there is a reason for that.