Way too formulaic in its depiction of the horrors of war

Rating: 7/10 (6 May 2015)

Throughout film history, there's been a constant fascination with war. As new documentaries on the two great World Wars appear every year, so do films on similar events. From All Quiet on the Western Front (1930) to the recently released Fury (2014), Hollywood's interest in depicting war shows no signs of slowing down. Spielberg's 1998 epic Saving Private Ryan fits in a long line of war epics attempting to depict the horrors of war in a realistic manner. SPR does this exceptionally wellfor the duration of roughly 20 minutes.
The film starts with an old man visiting the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial with his family. He stops at a specific gravestone and collapses in tears. The camera focuses on his eyes and the film flashes back to D-Day with a depiction of the Omaha Beach landing that has to be seen to be believed. This prolonged sequence is the film's and Spielberg's crowning achievement. After the allied forces break through, the film cuts back to events on American soil. At the War Department of the United States it becomes apparent that three of four sons of the Ryan family have been killed. The mother is about to receive this tragic news in the form of three letters being sent simultaneously. A General has this brought to his attention and – remembering how Abraham Lincoln offered his heartfelt condolences to a mother in similar circumstances – orders his officers to find the remaining son (Matt Damon), who's somewhere in Normandy, and bring him home. Enter Captain Miller (Tom Hanks) who, having just survived the beach landing, is given the mission, gathers a small group of soldiers and – with some reservations about the importance of the mission when juxtaposed with the big picture – they all head further into Normandy in search of a single soldier.
The extensive Omaha Beach sequence is the single reason why anyone's still talking about this film. The amount of planning required for this scene must have been incredible and yet the entire scene still feels 'unplanned' and appropriately chaotic. It wouldn't be a stretch to name this sequence the reason the film's been showered with Academy Awards. Other aspects like acting and especially the cinematography and production design are also praiseworthy, but that's pretty much where it ends for me.
I find the rest of the film to be something of a mixed bag. It chronicles Miller and co's search for Private Ryan and all the hardships they endure along the way. The main problem I have with the rest of the film is that it feels contrived. The Omaha Beach sequence is at once the film's saving grace and the reason the rest of the film pales by comparison. Not that the rest of the film has nothing to offer dramatically, it does, but it all feels too calculated, too contrived and convenient as opposed to the radical and chaotic opening scene. For instance, you expect the soldiers to bond over the course of their journey before some of them die and how this is all supposed to elicit our sympathy. You see this coming long before it happens and it's thus not as impactful as it should be. And what about the oh-so dramatic pause right before the sniper in the tower is shot by a tank's cannon, designed so that we can symbolically say goodbye; Miller's clichéd reference to his wife gardening with his gloves (all that's missing are the images of white-picket fences); Ryan's two-minute monologue – supposed to elicit our sympathy – which comes across as incredibly awkward; the fact that Miller is shot by the same German whom he showed mercy to several scenes ago and that it's the bookish Upham (of all people) who 'earns his stripes' by conveniently killing him; old Ryan saluting Miller's grave while trumpets hum patriotically in the background; the fact that the filmmakers did the oh-so (for lack of a better word) 'American' thing by bookending the film with shots of the American flag softly lit by the afternoon sun, etc, etc. All these scenes and more reveal a script purposefully crafted to the point of dramatic perfectionand that's not a compliment. Why does the Omaha Beach sequence still amaze after all these years? Because it represents the horrors of war in purely visual terms. There is no dramatic logic, only chaos; bodies and limbs flying everywhere, soldiers whimpering and screaming. There are no allied soldiers and Nazis, just people trying to survive. The rest of the film with all its carefully calculated drama doesn't come within a country mile of effectively conveying the same sense of horror.