Gritty, realistic, disturbing and magnificent

Rating: Null/10 (7 January 2005)

Not that many films have actually been realistic in showing the how utterly disturbing and horrific experience that war is. "We Were Soldiers" was utter propaganda nonsense, as was "Black Hawk Down" which solely focused on violence. "Windtalkers" and "Tears of the Sun" weren't great either. They didn't try and focus on how utterly disturbing and disgusting the war was, no; they tried to create action-films to be viewed purely as popcorn entertainment and on some levels they succeeded. But Saving Private Ryan was a bar above the rest; a disgusting, realistic, beautiful attempt to show how horrible the war was, also showing as an entertaining movie too. When it's Spielberg, you know it's business.
After a stomach-churningly horrific opening 20 minutes, in which limbs are torn and guts are spread across the beach, the film gets right to the point. With one of my favourite actors, Vin Diesel, in the team, they set off after orders to find James Ryan (Matt Damon) as per instructions given to them by an army base. This disturbingly realistic film really shows what hell war is. Not just in the fight scenes (after the first one on the beaches of Normandy they are infrequent) but what depths men have to go in war to complete the task given to them (i.e. trudging on in all conditions) and it realistically portrays the madness of it all. Only Platoon and Apocalypse Now have had anywhere near the effect.
Horribly graphic and Tear-jerkingly beautiful, Steven Spielberg creates another timeless masterpiece that will assure that the full 161 minutes stay in the memory for a long, long time.
Overall: ***** out of ***** (5 out of 5)