One of Spielberg's crowning achievements...

Rating: 9/10 (15 February 2011)

..."Saving Private Ryan" is likely to remain in my Top 10 Favorite War Movies for a long, long time. I'm taking the time to post this edited version of a review I wrote back when I first saw the film (opening night, 1998) not because I think anyone on this site will care (or even read it), but because I feel compelled to work on covering a wide variety of my favorite films on this site. I watched the film again a few days ago (probably at least my twentieth viewing), and wanted to reflect on the differences in the initial viewing experience compared to this recent one.
"Saving Private Ryan" is a film about honor, at its core, and is as genuine a salute to men who have laid down their lives for their country as anyone could ask. Director Spielberg and writer Robert Rodat deliver a ferocious look at the intensity of modern close combat and its effects on its participants, and raise questions for which there are no confident answers, if indeed there ever have been any at all.
The structure of the film is symmetric, opening and closing in a Normandy military cemetery, where an aging vet and his family visit the grave of a fallen comrade. Book-ended between are two blisteringly enervating combat sequences and an episodic journey through horror and hard questions.
I say the film is about honor, and it is. What else is an act of saving someone else if not an act of honor? And in the process of doing so, the most difficult of all choices must be made--whether to sacrifice one's own life that others might live, or make "the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country." Spielberg's exploration of this dilemma follows several paths and, in keeping with the general tenor of the film--terrifying, numbing, disorienting, and possessed of a great sorrow--he never provides sophistic or glib answers. He leaves us at film's end still reeling from the dense insanity of a desperate bridge defense, with an old man who after all the passing years still struggles with unanswerable questions.
Where is the honor in war? What is the relative value of a man's life? On a personal level, is there anything worth the risk of unimaginable pain and suffering? Other films have tackled these questions in the past, but rarely had such visceral impact. A sniper's duel culminates in a blasted eye socket that makes the audience cringe; a sapper is blown to jelly by a defective "sticky bomb": an excruciating knife fight in which the victor soothes his dying opponent almost crucifies the audience with its grim denouement. Critics have harped on the unrelenting violence as pandering to a jaded, bloodthirsty audience, but they miss the point. Spielberg goes so far beyond the limits of typical cinematic "Grand Guignol" that no one can mistake the overt nature of the message: killing people, especially ones that are trying to kill you, is a brutish, messy business, and no one in their right mind has any desire to engage in the trade any more than they might be otherwise compelled.
After an opening 25-minute barrage that sets the tone, Spielberg and Rodat's story begins to unfold. Capt. John Miller (Tom "Forrest Gump" Hanks) must lead a squad of his men through a highly fluid battle zone in search of a Private James Francis Ryan (Matt "Good Will Hunting" Damon), the sole surviving brother of four. Ryan is somewhere behind enemy lines, a trooper of the scattered 101st Airborne Division, who had dropped the night before the invasion. It is D+3 and Miller has orders from General George Marshall to bring Ryan out of the raging Normandy battle, to be returned to the safety of his motherland and his family. And so we set off on a trek through hell, a journey that will leave most of its participants dead.
Each man in the squad is an archetype, and a symbol. Pvt.Caparzo (Vin "Pitch Black" Diesel) is Innocence, The Child. Wade, the medic (Giovanni "SubUrbia" Ribisi), is Mercy, The Angel. Mellish, a Jewish soldier (Adam "Dazed and Confused" Goldberg), and Jackson, the prayerful sharpshooter (Barry "61*" Pepper), embody twin motivations of Retribution and Righteousness, the Hammer and the Sword, while Sgt. Horvath (Tom "Natural Born Killers" Sizemore) and Capt. Miller serve as Fortitude and Conscience, dual engines of strength and courage that keep the small patrol on its fated course.
These are the ones who perish--each slain in ascending order of significance within the simple tapestry of the plot--the human qualities that are inevitably stripped from a man as he confronts the implacable juggernaut of war. The only ones to survive the charnelhouse are Pvt. Rieben (Ed "The Brothers McMullen" Burns), the Witness, Chance ("I was born lucky, Captain!"), and tag-along interpreter Cpl. Upham (Jeremy "Spanking the Monkey" Davies), the Everyman audience surrogate, the Fool. Ultimately, it is he who must make the crucial moral choice of the film.
"Saving Private Ryan" is not a comfortable film experience. Overly sensitive film-goers will probably be overwhelmed by it; if they can make it through the Omaha beach sequence, they'll do okay. For the rest of us, it's a film worthy of the accolades it has so far received. Personally, I was a bit surprised that it didn't get the Oscar for Best Picture over "Shakespeare in Love," especially since Spielberg got the nod for Best Director. Such are the whims of the Academy. Never mind. It takes nothing away from the raw power of "Saving Private Ryan."
Addendum: one noticeable difference between the theatrical and home video experience is visual. The stuttery, bleached-out quality of the film (primarily in the battle sequences) is much reduced in the transfer to small screen presentation. It's not a tremendous flaw, but moves me to definitely recommend a theatrical viewing should it ever present itself.