Wow.

Rating: 10/10 (12 January 1999)

Spielberg takes a giant leap forward as a filmmaker with this amazing movie. Beyond "entertainment," this film actually left me examining my own place and responsibility in the world. Lured in by a typically cliched Hollywood war-film plot ("we've got to save Pvt. Ryan... for his Mama!") that plays to our most romanticized notions of war, the film instead devolves into the incoherent, bloody mess war actually is, and finally, with the closing scenes, attains an allegorical plateau as it makes its true point - that we are all "Private Ryan," enjoying lives of pleasure and freedom thanks to the thousands of common men who united 50 years ago to destroy the most evil human endeavor of modern times. Bravo.