Eight men save the life of a stranger for the right to leave a man made hell.

Rating: 10/10 (30 May 1999)

Steven Spielberg's second great WWII epic. The beginning battle at Normandy to the last great words. It showed war as it is, opening minds to the real horrors of what their grandparents and parents lived and still live. The realism was eerie. You knew the men on the screen, the bullets were flying at you, it was your family receiving the dreaded letter. It wasn't your every day film. It brought you to tears. It showed not only war, but human goodness. Eight men, men with lives and families, risk their lives to save the last of four brothers, they didn't know him, he wasn't important to them. They did it, for him and themselves. The stories told by Private James Ryan made him somebody to the soldiers, so that they fought for him after their duty of finding him was done. Told by the greatest teller of our time.
The true feeling of the movie is belief. In people. Would I have done this? Would I have stayed for the final battle? Someone would. Someone did. Many. They died for you, years before you were born most likely. All you can do is hope that you did "Earn it."