A superb movie by Steven Spielberg, which almost, but not quite, fulfills all it's intentions.

Rating: 9/10 (30 June 1999)

I guess you all know what it's all about, and you've heard about how real it is.
Well, for me, it came across mostly as very realistic although the Omaha Beach landing was more a gorefest than great cinema. This might have been intentional, as the purpose probably was to shock the audience with the full horrors of war.
Still this scene doesn't "do it" for me. Why? Because I've read so much about the D-Day and WWII that I know people died in droves (literally) on the beaches that day, such as they always do in war, only this was on a much greater scale. That same scale what is working against the scene because we don't know the characters involved and we do know that those we recognise(Tom Sizemore and Tom Hanks for instance) will make it safely ashore as they have to go and find this paratrooper schmuck named Ryan. It is a good scene though, just not all that it was claimed to be.
Ok, ok, I've rambled on about the landing, how about the rest of the film? Well, it starts off a bit slow, to allow the audience to get their breaths back from the opening 20 minute blood bath and to introduce the main characters to the audience. We are also introduced to the films moral dilemma, is it fair to risk the lives of nine men to save one, just because his three brothers have already died? What price are we prepared to pay and for what exactly are we willing to pay that price? The message is further emphasized by the losses incurred on our small group of heroes as they traverse the French countryside. The whole mission seems like a suicide, especially as nobody knows wether Ryan is still alive at all!
And it's the final battle scene that really makes the movie for me. Because now it's man to man, you know the characters involved and you can see the fear in their eyes, and you can see the same fear in the germans' eyes.
So it's really gritty and intense, and Spielberg has managed to capture all this with a really stunning and up-close photo. The cinematics are incredible, the shots are long with few cuts, just like in the old David Lean movies (Lawrence of Arabia, most notably). All this combines into one, long and really breathtaking battle. It would probably have been easier to start a real war and film that one instead than to shoot this battle scene. When I came out of the theater, my condition could only be described as "shell-shocked".
Sadly, this is a movie which will lose a lot if seen on a TV. But see it anyway if you haven't seen it yet.