Great Battle Scenes And A Thought Provoking Consideration Of The Value Of A Human Life

Rating: 7/10 (4 December 2009)

Surely this movie presents some of the most believable, most graphic and most gruesome scenes of war ever shown on film. The opening depiction of the storming of Omaha Beach on D-Day and the closing battle as American soldiers desperately try to hold a strategically key bridge against a German attack are brilliantly and soberingly portrayed, and if there was nothing else in this movie worth watching, those battle scenes in and of themselves are a powerful lesson about the horrors of war.
The battle scenes serve as an envelope around the main story - the search for Private James Ryan. As the movie begins we learn that Ryan's three brothers have all been killed in battle, and he's the only one of his mother's sons left. Gen. George Marshall (quoting from an eloquent letter written by Abraham Lincoln to a mother who lost 5 sons in the Civil War) orders Ryan found so that he could be returned home before being killed himself, and a squad under Capt. Mitchell (Tom Hanks) is assigned to the task. Believability is a bit of an issue here. I doubt that in the middle of a great war soldiers would be taken away from battle and assigned to this task. Having said that, the very lack of believability gives the search for Ryan it's meaning, and serves as the movie's moral or philosophical purpose. The constant question before the viewer is: how many lives are we willing to sacrifice to save one? There's no answer to that question, but it remains front and centre as even the soldiers assigned to find Ryan increasingly resent the assignment and question its value. The constant challenge I found myself faced with was how I would have felt if I were assigned to find a soldier in such circumstances so that he could be sent home while I stayed to fight a war - and possibly die? Thought-provoking.
Still, I didn't think this reached the heights of greatness that some have given it. Thought-provoking it may have been, but between the great battle scenes there were also long stretches with little happening, and overall the movie was too long at more than an hour and a half. It's a movie that's certainly worth watching - but only once. I wouldn't want to see it again. 7/10