One of the greatest films ever made **spoilers**

Rating: 8/10 (8 March 2003)

This is one of the greatest films ever made. Obviously, there are people complaining about "sentimentality", "sickening pro-Americanism", etc. Well, for those people - I'm anything but a patriot, but I still loved this film - it is THE greatest war film ever, and the second best FILM ever.
It's been said, but I will still say it: if you don't like this, fine - just DON'T BASH IT FOR BEING PRO-AMERICAN WHEN IT IS AN AMERICAN FILM! Stereotypes? Whatever - then there are plenty of '40s and '50s movies for you to make fun of, since they were so one-sided. This is a film about soldiers, NOT a crappy all-star extravaganza with big names top-billed for maybe twenty minutes of screen time and slow battle scenes - "Midway", "Tora! Tora! Tora!" (extremely overrated IMO), and "The Battle of the Bulge" - where half of the movie is the opposing generals planning the battle. Ah well.
The plot is a bit hackneyed: eight crack US soldiers are sent on a mission to rescue Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), who has crashlanded behind enemy lines. The reason? Because all of his brothers have already been butchered, and the US Military (in the persona of Chief of Staff George C. Marshall [Harve Presnell]) decides for public relations reasons to save him. The soldiers, led by John Miller (Tom Hanks!), go through a war-scarred countryside, engaging in a skirmish or two along the way and seeing the ravages of war up close and personal.
Sound corny?
Well, it is: but the EXECUTION is perfect. Yes, the opening and closing scenes at the Normany Memorial could've been left out without making the film any worse - but they're a very small part of the experience.
The battle scenes and the acting are great - even Vin Diesel, who after seeing the abomination that is "XXX" I now despise, is good (though he only has about fifteen minutes of screen time anyway). The opening D-Day fighting features some of the most graphic violence ever put on film, with "Dr. Strangelove"-esque cinematography. Let's just say, however, that after seeing "We Were Soldiers", "The Wild Bunch", "The Patriot", etc. before this, I was not shocked by the violence at all. Even the soldier who had his guts blown out did not disgust me - I thought it looked like foam spray. But it's still a graphic scene.
One of the best scenes of the film is the attack on the radar station, for more than one reason. Seven of the US troops (Diesel's character was killed by a German sniper in a French town a while back) attack a small German force. The battle is not shown, really: instead, we see a brief firefight with no gore at all through the view of the green interpreter Corporal Upham (the superb Jeffrey Davies). Then one of the grunts, a Private Wade (Giovanni Rizzi), has been gut shot. In a heart-rendering scene, his comrades gather around him and attempt to stop the bleeding before he dies. Then, the Americans come across a German soldier (Joerg Sadler), who is forced to dig a grave for Wade. Upham pleads for the German's life, while Miller and his men want to execute him. The German utters token English phrases (such as "F*ck Hitler!") in an attempt to have himself spared. Miller, for whatever reason, decides to let him go.
The best battle scene of all, however, is the final confrontation. Having finally found Ryan and several men of his patrol, Miller and his men decide to join them in the defense of a crucial bridgehead against what would prove to be a last-stand. This battle scene is graphic and moving - no realism is spared. The ending was predictably cop-out, but given how it played out, I didn't much care.
Ten stars is an award that I give very few films - but Spielberg - arguably the greatest filmmaker working today - deserves it with this.