It is more than just the Omaha Beach invasion, it is a mission to save a lone soldier in German-held France

Rating: 10/10 (18 August 2014)

Well, the movie starts with what was a part of Omaha Beach, called the Normandy memorial now, filled with the graves of Allied soldiers who fought and died in the Normandy invasion. He finds the gravestone, along with his family, of soldier John Miller, and then recalls the fateful day of the invasion in his mind.
There are reminders of the cheesy movie known as "The Longest Day", as the Omaha Beach invasion scene in "Private Ryan" takes full swing. Over 15 minutes of terror, fright, and blood-letting as heavy German resistance with mortars and endless sprays of machine-gun fire rained death on the Allied soldiers who landed on the beach with their landing craft.
The Allies get stopped by the heavy and deadly resistance but finds their way to get through the enemy in the beachhead with Bangalore torpedoes, flamethrowers, and sniper rifles.
When all was over, we see that Daniel Ryan fell dead on the beach, and we get the first words on three Ryans who fell in World War II, but not James Francis. We get word on the parachute mis-drops that were part of the Normandy invasion which meant James Francis Ryan did not know that all of his 3 relatives died in combat, so a rescue mission deep in the German-held front lines of France is in store.
We then get the first scenes of John Miller, who is picked to find a small platoon for the mission. He finds soldiers, and then the mission is on, right into the French countryside.
First skirmish against the Germans is in a small French town in a heavy rainstorm where one of the platoon soldiers, Mr. Caparza, finds a French baby whom a French family wants to liberate. Caparza takes the baby, but because he was mistaken as a Nazi soldier (he was really an American soldier, but he was bald-headed), a French resistance soldier-sniper takes Caparza down with one shot in the chest. The platoon realize this and decided to find the sniper but have to leave Caparza alone and tell him not to move or he would get shot again. Fortunately, the sniper was taken out but Caparza eventually dies on the ground.
More small skirmishes against the Germans were in store upon finding James Francis Ryan. In one lull in the fighting, they almost got the soldier they wanted who was James Ryan but with a different middle name (which was, regrettably, Patrick), so the search continues.
Then, after a German prowler (a half-track) was destroyed in another French open field as the search continued, the platoon finds another platoon that destroyed the tank - it was the platoon with James Francis Ryan. The platoon got their man.
The final thing was for his survivors - the platoon itself and the surviving Ryan, to fight against a small German army that almost outnumbered them, in the town of Ramelle. The firefight had to be creative because they used ammo that was just left - not too much. James Ryan does survive and the firefight ends when the P-51 Mustangs finished off the Germans, but John Miller gets shot and dies in the combat.
James Ryan survives, still looking at his fallen soldier on the Normandy beach memorial, thinking about his duty for country that he had done on this major turning point in World War II.