I enjoyed this war movie for the most part, but after the initial invasion of Normandy scene it falters a bit.

Rating: Null/10 (30 June 2010)

This movie was like no other the first twenty or so minutes. It took you right into the heart of war like no other movie had done before. The action was tense, the carnage was in your face, and the blood flowed freely. Then the movie added a rather sad excuse for a plot and the rest of the movie suffers because of this. Not to say it was not a good movie from the moment they get the plot on, but it just feels cheapened by the whole, "lets rescue this one dude" scenario. Most of the rest of the film is the troops searching from place to place with a few skirmishes here and there. An interesting subplot though involves one of the American soldiers calling for the release of a Nazi that the rest wanted to kill. I found how that played out to be very intriguing. It made for one of the tenses scenes in the movie in my eyes as the one guy was trying to drive the knife in another and you just knew the other guy was going to come in and turn the tide. The cast is excellent as Tom Hanks is at his best here, I can believe he did not get an Oscar for this one and he did get one for "Forrest Gump". The only member of the cast I did not care for all that much is Matt Damon in the role of Private Ryan, he just did not have a 1940's look to him, or like someone who had been in combat for a while like Hanks' troop. Still, overall this is a very good picture and while I never saw "Shakespere in Love" I am still certain this film got robbed. Granted my score is not the best, but that is my level of enjoyment for the film. As a whole it most certainly merited some awards. Change the plot a bit though after the invasion scene and I think this one could have even been a ten to me, a person who really is not all into war movies.