Powerful film, but not quite perfect

Rating: 9/10 (29 July 2004)

SPOILERS
When that legendary British statesman, Winston Churchill, stated "Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few", he was of course referring to the Battle Of Britain. Skipping forward through the war and eventually the allies would succeed in that momentous occasion of D-Day. Landing on the beaches of Normandy, the British, American and other Allied forces would eventually free Europe from the tyranny of the fascists. War has never been simple however, and once in a while, a form of publicity mission might take place. An incident where, during all the blood loss, soldiers would take risks to save one man, just so his mother doesn't loose all of her children. It's always been a strange American military policy in the eyes of many, but as "Saving Private Ryan" shows, there are times it happens.
In Spielberg's epic war film, Tom Hanks plays Captain John Miller. Former school teacher and now war veteran, Miller survives the D-Day Landings, only to be ordered to go and retrieve a Private John. F. Ryan (Matt Damon). Ryan's three elder brothers have all died in the last week and the army, aware of this wants the remaining brother to return home. Against Miller's better judgement he travels with about nine men, to find Ryan and return him safely to his mother.
"Saving Private Ryan" rightly earned Steven Spielberg his second directing Oscar and arguably should have won more. This film is a powerful piece which is at times moving, at times strenuous and always going to keep you glued to the screen. With an enormous cast of well known actors (some which you'll know the names of and some you'll recognise the faces), the film is never short of someone who can deliver a line. It's not these lines which really hit home as much though as the most crucial and most powerful scene in this entire movie is the opening thirty minutes during the Landings themselves. There's no way someone who was born forty years after the end of the war is going to be able to tell you how realistic this film was, but if the events were anything like the film depicted, then the younger generations should be immensely grateful to have never had to taken part in anything similar.
Perhaps the one problem with "Saving Private Ryan" is an element of bias. There's always someone around Britain who claims the rest of the Allies could have won the war without America, just like there's Americans who claim they did the majority of the victory and are owed everyone else's eternal gratitude. The truth of the matter is that neither person is right. If America had never got involved then it is likely that just like the rest of Europe, Britain would have fallen to Germany. Ultimately however, with American help, the British still played a massive part in the War and earned praise as much as any country. The problem is that this film seems to ignore this fact. If Tom Hank's soldiers had travelled around the French countryside and met mostly Americans but also a few British, there would have been less problems. The flaw is that this film appears at times to imply that the entire second world war involved purely the Americans, the French and the Germans. There is not a single British person in sight in this entire film. Churchill would not have approved and countless other Brits don't either.
This lack of British involvement has perhaps slightly hampered "Saving Private Ryan" at times, but this is a mistake. Whether this film is extremely over patriotic or not (beginning and ending with the American flag for example), that does not take away from it as a beautiful piece of cinema. With amazing cinematography, excellent acting and sturdy directing, "Saving Private Ryan" is understandably in the top ten war films of all time. If perhaps a child is ever to act ungrateful about the age in which we now live in, his or her parents should show them "Saving Private Ryan" to shut them up. Life was hell for so many people during the War, and it feels that perhaps sometimes we forget that. This film will be talked about for decades to come.