Among the top war films of all time...

Rating: 8/10 (13 September 2006)

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN stands alongside SCHINDLER'S LIST as one of Steven Spielberg's greatest achievements as a director. And just recently, I had the pleasure of re-discovering his EMPIRE OF THE SUN, and realized then how well he captures on film the horror and brutality of war without going in for stereotyped characters.
During the '40s, when war films were largely produced for propaganda purposes and for injecting much needed patriotism into all Americans while we fought Hitler and Mussolini and the Japanese, we had films like A WALK IN THE SUN or GUADALCANAL DIARY or SO PROUDLY WE HAIL. All of them were fine, in their own way, but often resorted to creating Hollywood stereotypes among the characters, the soldiers and nurses who fought during the war.
Not true here. From the startling twenty-minute opening sequence on the D-day invasion, through the intricacies of inter-personal relationships among a disparate group of men, we never once feel we're watching stereotypes but real people. All of the performances are first-rate, beginning with TOM HANKS, whose everyman personality is put to excellent use here. Others too numerous to mention do great jobs in the large supporting cast.
No cheap heroics here, just a compelling war story, extremely well done and holding interest from beginning to end. Recommended highly.
Trivia note: John Williams' score is never intrusive enough to damage the stark reality of some of the most brutal scenes.