A captivating, yet flawed, masterpiece

Rating: 10/10 (20 August 2005)

Steven Spielberg's war time drama Saving Private Ryan, often get's recognition as the greatest war film ever. I think that opinion is wrong, but it certainly may be the most realistically shot, hard edged war film of all time. It is a masterpiece, not without its strong points, yet certainly not without a number of flaws that prevent this from being a true classic, any which way you bend it.
The story starts out with an elderly man visiting the Arlington National Cemetery, visiting his fallen comrades of 60+ years. The movie takes place around the events of D-Day, June 6, 1944, starting with a captivating and harrowing battle sequence showing us young ones, such as myself, just what it may have been like in WWII combat. The gore, violence, and cries are all very real, and little is left to the audience's imagination, we can even get a taste of what the characters are thinking and/or seeing.
After the 20 minute battle sequence, we find that a boy, Pvt. James Ryan, has lost all 3 of his brothers, and by government orders, he is forced to leave combat and return home. Most of the film focuses around the troop of American soldiers who go through hell to find him.
After the Normandy scene, the plot rarely really thickens, and arguably is no longer as convincing or as interesting. The script is painfully cliché and average, and there really isn't much in the way of character development. Spielberg makes the most out of what he's given, occasionally going for the visual eye candy, and occasionally slowing the pace down and attempting to give the film some serious emotional momentum.
Spielberg attempts to show both sides of the war, but too often falls back on his own personal bias, attempting to cause the audience to emotionally stir and get their juices flowing, often when there's not much juice to flow and not many emotions to be stirred. Sometimes he tries to tackle the challenge of making a mountain from a mole hill. These scenes occasionally work, yet they too often feel forced and empty, such as the over done, unequivocal Allie death scenes, which try too hard to force a response from the audience's mouthes.
The story takes a few jolts, and is never really predictable, despite the often clichéd telling of the going-ons, but after awhile it seems a bit two dimensional.
One thing I did like was the use of the character of Ryan {until the end} as a metaphor. Spielberg uses his name as a metaphor at times for the freedom these men might never again see, freedom they might never find again. Ryan represents peace, and they just can't find it, not even amongst themselves. As I said, the film is at times visually stunning, and the acting performances really help in some cases to bring life to otherwise dead characters. Tom Hanks is riveting as usual, refusing to be held back by the dulled script.
The very ending actually left me bitterly disappointed. Its not that I was appalled by the patriotic message, Spielberg is perfectly entitled to make a film that celebrates the American dream of Freedom, but I was mad that the film once again decided to tell/show us everything. That's the problem. Far too often Saving Private Ryan shows us too much, not leaving anything up to our imaginations. As a war film, it should show us a lot, but the overall messages in the film are whetted down by further scenes that could have worked better if they had remained out of the film. The ending could have worked on several different levels, but instead Spielberg almost tarnishes the would be message of the film, by showing an emotional 5 minute end scene with elderly Ryan and his family. I was a bit disappointed with what Spielberg left, or rather didn't leave, up to us, the audience to decide for ourselves.
The film is at times guilty of shoving attained beliefs down our throat. But Saving Private Ryan still has plenty of good, heartfelt moments that interlude over the bad, and for that it still works as a movie, but certainly suffers from several near fatal flaws.
7/10