The greatest war film of all time!

Rating: 10/10 (19 December 1999)

This is not an easy film to watch. Clearly, that was not its intent.
The story begins in current time at the Normandy American Cemetary in France. An elderly man, followed by his family, walks as if compelled toward a single grave. When he arrives there, his memory takes a different journey back to the beaches below on the date, 6 June 1944.
From this moment on, especially for the ensuing 25 minutes, we are thrust into a story that, if it is hard to view, must certainly have been harder to live. As the troop transports approach Omaha Beach, the eerie sense of calm gives way to a landscape that when all is said and done is one of the most powerful statements ever put on film.
When all is said and done, two brothers surnamed Ryan have died on the beaches of Normandy. Another has died within a week in the Pacific. It is discovered that a sole surviving brother has parachuted somewhere in France. It is the assignment of a survivor of Normandy and his platoon to find this brother and return him home.
Director Steven Spielberg is a master at bringing emotion to the surface and he does it once again with a film which is gut-wrenching. However, the movie isn't all blood and gore; it's the story of young men and boys who fought and died to preserve a way of life and to eliminate the evil that they saw.
Tom Hanks heads the cast as Capt. John Miller, the man who is given the mission to find Pvt. Ryan and bring him home. In one sense, it works against the film to know that Matt Damon plays Pvt. James Ryan, but not so much that you can't appreciate the nuances which Miller and his platoon come up against time and time again during their mission.
I agree with those who say that Spielberg puts us, his audience, into the film and sweeps us up and carries us along from the opening moments until the film's end. It is a masterful piece of filmmaking that makes us feel that we have survived, although we were never in danger.
Saving Private Ryan is a masterpiece.
My vote: 11!!