Saving private Ryan

Rating: 10/10 (29 May 2016)

You could watch the first scene of this film and think: "this is a great scene, but why is this necessary?" But really, this scene lays out the foundation for the rest of the film. The scene shows how fragile life is in war. How a man could die right next to you within a matter of seconds and you may not even notice. It also shows how all hope seems to be crushed by war, showing a man nearly being hit by a bullet and checking his helmet, but only getting shot in the head seconds later. It also shows men trying to revive a man on the ground, and just as they stop the bleeding, the man is shot in the head. The film shows this later in a scene involving Vin Deasel attempting to save a child from a building in the middle of a war zone, only to be shot by a sniper and have that child go back to his parents. It shows how there are no clear good guys and bad guys and how the Americans aren't necessarily any better than the other guys by showing men killing unarmed troops from the other side for, well, no reason. It shows this later in a scene in which the once naive Timothy is spared by a German soldier, and then kills an unarmed soldier who he spared earlier in the film only to have him be put back into circulation and kill more men, showing also how drastically it changes men. It even shows how Captain Miller must find hope in the face of all the horrible things happening around him by muting all the sound and using slow motion, both techniques that are used in a similar situation towards the end of the film as a call back.
After this fantastic scene, however, the men of Captain Miller's squad are called on a mission to save the final son of a mother who has lost her three other sons to this war only recently. The men are obviously confused by why they would need to risk all of their lives to save one man, and the film teeters back and forth on whether this mission is worth it or not. At many points it seems futile, especially after a second soldier is killed off in an incredibly heart wrenching scene in which Miller asks the dying medic what they can do to help him to which he responds with simply "some morphine would help". But in many places they seem to find possible hope. A high ranking officer tells Miller "I have a brother. You get that boy home". And when they accidentally find the wrong Private Ryan and inform him that his brothers are dead, even after he is told that he is not the guy the were looking for, just the idea of his brothers being dead tears him apart, showing the importance of a single person. Then also when they are loudly searching through dog tags to find a Private Ryan, only to realize that a squadron full of people that fought with those men are walking by. This shows that to them what is a meaningless name could have incredible significance to others. When they do end up getting to Ryan, it turns out he doesn't want to be saved. If he dies he says to tell his mom that he died with the only brothers that he had left. But Miller decides that if they save Private Ryan it might be the only decent thing that they've done in this horrible situation, and then they could truly earn their right to go home. But the victory is a long shot, and many people die in the process, including Miller. But Private Ryan survives, and in Miller's dying breaths he tells Ryan to "earn this". Ryan ends up living the rest of his life trying to live up to Captain Miller's command and earn this opportunity to live that many died to give him. So, was it even worth it?
Well, its not black and white, but the film argues yes, to some extent. Many men may have died, and many may have been permanently damaged, both emotionally and physically. And they may not know the good that they have done for the world, but as Private Ryan talks to Miller's grave in his old age, his wife and kids and grand kids lurk behind him, showing that if it weren't for people like Miller, many people today wouldn't exist. For every one man that is saved, many more get the chance to live.