Underwhelming

Rating: 7/10 (29 May 2003)

Not Steven Spielberg's best film by a long shot (ET or Schindler's List anyone?) but certainly his most graphic, Saving Private Ryan is pretty much summed up by its tagline "The Mission is a Man". The film is simple, almost to the point of frustration and possibly Spielberg wanted it this way to highlight some of the themes running throughout the film (war is, um... bad). However what it amounts to is poor storytelling. Coming from Spielberg, a man who prides himself for storytelling, this is a disappointment.
Tom Hanks plays the everyman, again, as a reluctant schoolteacher wanting to help his country. Matt Damon plays Private Ryan, the young soldier that Hanks and his crew have been sent to find. Beginning with one of the most memorable scenes in recent cinema and ending with one of the most sickeningly sentimental scenes, Private Ryan is an uneven work. What people like about this film is the simple message juxtaposed with, what I guess, brutal violence. Oliver Stone managed this better in Platoon (even the brilliant opening scene in Private Ryan does not compare to the scene in Platoon where the soldiers burn down the Vietnamese village).
That said, SVP still features decent performances from Matt Damon and Tom Hanks with excellent support coming from Tom Sizemore and a surprisingly touching performance from Vin Diesel, in a small role as an Italian-American soldier. The direction is also solid as is the script. However mundanity and Spielberg's safety net, sentimentality frequently come into play making this a lesser entry in the war film and the Spielberg cannon.