Possibly the most accurate representation of warfare, ever.

Rating: Null/10 (20 October 2002)

Right, let's get this out of the way with first. Yes, this film is often sickeningly patriotic and it does not give a fair representation of how the soldiers of other nation's (including Germany) suffered dreadfully in the events of June 1944. Good, now that's settled.
I first saw this film when I was about thirteen, I'd like to make two points before I go on.
1)Before I saw this film I thought war was 'cool'. 2)Before I saw this film I knew little or nothing about the most momentous event of the 20th century.
I wasn't expecting much, then the ramps went down on the landing craft and the first twenty soldiers were cut to pieces in a hail of bullets, obliterated in an instant. I was appalled, horrified, all the more so because I knew that this had actually happened, I had seen countless movie deaths, in countless ways before, but nothing like this. The sheer ferocity of the opening beach landing is horrendous. You are one of those soldiers on the beach, desperately tying to find cover from the death raining down upon you from above. The maimed, screaming as medics attempt to operate on them in the middle of the most hellish chaos imaginable. Human instinct would be telling those men just to hide, but they had to do more than just stay alive, they had to take that beach at all costs.
This is not just a superb war film, it most definitely is a good drama. The sheer trauma that the common soldier experienced, the fact that young men who had never known death, had to watch their friends slaughtered before their eyes, is skillfully translated. The audience cares about each one of the characters, the death of Wade, the medic, as his friends tried to help him, reduced me to tears - it was so awful. As the search for Ryan progresses the characters begin to develop also. They are ordinary men caught up in the most terrifying events imaginable. Hanks gives an excellent performance, one of the best of his career.
The film is possibly the closest thing to war I have ever seen on screen. It pioneered the use of 'shakey-cam' and the use of washed out colours give the film a terrifyingly gritty and dirty realism that dispels any notion of glorious combat. The very sound, the ominous screeching made by the 60ton Tiger tank approaching the town, a hail of machine gun fire slamming into a human body, makes is horrific. Some have complained about the 'faceless enemy' of the German soldiers. If anything this added to the terror, at the film's finale, I remember upon first seeing it, even though I knew it was just German soldiers approaching, it was frightening - those were ordinary men just a few hundred yards down the street, not monsters, but they would kill you if they found you - I can't begin to explain it properly but this particularly a profound effect upon me.
The film is emotionally and physically draining, at some points you just want it to stop, but you can't take you're eyes off it. It prompted me to find out as much as I could about the Second World War and for this reason I am now studying History A level on Nazi Germany. It is not perfect - no, but because of seeing it I am now eternally grateful and fully aware of the tremendous sacrifice that that generation made for those after.