My view on the film

Rating: 10/10 (13 October 1998)

Phew, where do you start? A film that shows at last what bullets and bombs do to the human body. A film that shows that war is not about glory and seeing off a few of the enemy before getting home for tea. It makes me wonder how those men stayed sane when they got home, IF they got home. I found the film compelling and very, very disturbing. All too many American blockbuster films show people blazing away and the nasty men meeting their fate,but this one I believe is as close as a film has got to getting anywhere near the truth, if the vets accounts are anything to go by. And if it is, then I'm bloody glad I wasn't 18 in 1944...
The most moving part of the film for me was when the troop attacked some kind of radar installation, on the way to finding Private Ryan. After the attack one chap lies there with bullet holes in his chest, whilst his mates try and help him. Slowly he starts slipping away, and cries out for his mother, and his home. It's a scene that's still with me, weeks after seeing the movie. Another splendid side of the film for me was that there wasn't a clean cut, gung - ho, invincible hero to be seen...just normal, ordinary, and very scared men.
Any flaws? Well, for me personally, the very end was a little too sentimental, but that's the directors trade mark, I suppose. All in all, a terrific, pulsating, horrific and terrifying film from my point of view. I don't think I'll ever look at an old man in quite the same way again.