A fine film with a plausible plot.

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 1999)

Saving Private Ryan is certainly one of the most, if not the most, emotionally shocking films I have ever seen (and I have seen a lot). The film successfully recreates a very dark moment in recent history. Spielberg uses the intense opening scenes to promote a calculated audience reaction. He wants to give us, as soon as the film starts, a prolonged taste of what it was like for a soldier, perhaps fresh from cosy US civilisation, to step off a landing craft into the hell and chaos that was Omaha beach. Spielberg achieves this with a cinematographical style drawn from contemporary documentary footage. But for me it were the sound effects that added the final horrific realism to that scene and indeed the whole of the film. The sound of bullets striking metal, water, flesh without the accompanying crack from the far away gun is particularly memorable. (Now I come to think of it a similar effect was used in John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13).

The most powerful scene for me, one that gave me a few sleepless nights, was the hand to hand fighting that took place upstairs in the bombed-out house. The wrestling of the two opponents all the while the other wounded soldier is writhing around in the background, the would-be rescuer paralysed by fear, the short, final pleading of the loser is an absolute masterpiece of film making.

There is a lot of comment to the effect that the plot for the army to jeopardise a squad of men to retrieve an ordinary soldier is implausible. Yes I imagine that it would have been highly unusual but the action was to have a significant propaganda effect back home. I am sure that many bizarre and costly actions have taken place this century in the pursuit of propaganda. The mood of the domestic population is often crucial to the outcome of a foreign war. Look how it affected US operations in Vietnam. And you only have to read about what massive and risky operations are mounted to retrieve a single, downed US pilot in former Yugoslavia recently to be able to imagine that the SPR plot is not totally implausible.

For all the movie's real power there are, in my view, some faults to the film, curious queries that occurred to me whilst watching that have also been picked up by others. The final scene in the present day war cemetery I found to be misjudged. Supposedly to bring the film full circle, to tie in with the very first scene, I found it to be out of step with the previous two-and-a-half hours. Also, I found Matt Damon to be miscast  for me he looks too 90's. Ryan should have been played by an actor far less well known.

I suppose that in the first few days after D-Day, as the Americans spearheaded inland from one of their designated Normandy landing sites, the only other people the Americans came across were soldiers of the German army. The French population having mostly fled beforehand or in hiding and the other Allied troops still pushing ahead from their own landing zones. Having said that, as a Brit., it did feel to me as if the film portrayed the Yanks single-handedly liberating France. There aren't many opportunities for the director to incorporate other Allied nationalities into this scenario. Spielberg might have chosen RAF tank-busters but perhaps if he had he might have felt he was making a point about the Limeys showing up late and saving the day after all the hard work had been done.

Overall it is an excellent movie and gets a 10 rating from me. It is not perfect in every way but it is a film that every state-registered voter should see. It is a glorious tribute to all the men and women who served and fought to preserve the freedom and democracy we know (and take so much for granted) today.

Lastly, I do find it galling in the extreme that, amongst others, 16 year-olds from Illinois have the arrogance to moan, whinge and complain about this fine film. As the movie is R rated you presumably saw it with your Mom or Dad. I would far rather hear their comments than yours. Keep your comments to Babe 2: Pig in the City.