Saving Private Ryan is a no holes barred epic film...

Rating: 10/10 (29 September 1998)

Oscar-winning director Steven Spielberg and two time Oscar-winning actor Tom Hanks have collaborated on their first film and might well add to that collection come Oscar night. Saving Private Ryan is a no holes barred epic film about a group of Rangers who land on Omaha Beach on D-Day and then get sent on a very personal mission, to find one man who has parachuted behind enemy lines and is being sent home because his three older brothers have all been casualties of war.
The first 30 minutes of SPR is filled with seemingly never-ending images of the savagery and brutality of war. It is the landing at Omaha Beach on June 6 (aka D-Day). Hanks plays everyman Captain John Miller, who leads his men into battle there. Some survive the carnage but many do not. The imagery is fierce and honest from the opening of the first transport to the blood washed beaches at the end. In the middle of this film we have a philosophical dilemma which Miller's men try to sort out - is one man worth the lives of 9 men (Miller and his elite team)? And in the course of trying to answer this question we get to know John Miller and his first sergeant Horvath (well-played by Tom Sizemore), his sharp-shooter Private Jackson (Barry Pepper), his translator Corporal Upham (superbly acted by Jeremy Davies) and the other men in his unit - Edward Burns as Private Reiben - the NY bred, cocky recruit, Private Mellish (Adam Goldberg) who is Jewish and takes great satisfaction in killing Germans and who also plays a prominent role in an unforgettable scene at the film's conclusion, Medic Wade (Giovanni Ribisi) who becomes frustrated over his inability to save everyone, and Private Caparzo (Vin Diesel) who tries to save a young French girl in the face of sniper fire. But it is Hanks who holds the film and the unit together with his quiet determination.
Also admirable in smaller roles are Ted Danson as another Captain who helps Miller's unit track down Ryan and Dennis Farina as a Lieutenant, Harve Presnell as General George Marshall, whose decision to extract Private Ryan will change the lives of 10 men forever and Matt Damon as Private Ryan.
Not for the faint of heart, this movie pulls no punches and spares no one as the human carnage continues throughout the film but particularly at the end where the juxtapositioning of the troops listening to a German love song while preparing to ambush some German tanks trying to traverse the bridge at Ravell lends an eerie quality to the eventual fighting and emotionally charged climax of the film.
One thing is for sure - once you have seen this movies you will never look upon World War II in quite the same way.
Not to be missed, see this on the big screen and in a THX theatre and prepare to be devastated