Best war film since "Platoon"

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2006)

As well as praise,this film also received a lot of criticism at the time of it's release because of it's pro-American view.so what... This IS an American financed film,made BY American's,FOR American audience's with American actor's and the beach landing on Omagh were done BY American servicemen. I can't see why SPR should be snubbed at because of this,It wasn't the first and won't be the last war film to be made from an American point of view.
"Saving private Ryan" is an excellent war film and deserve's it's billing as one of the top 10 war movie of all time.
The opening Omagh beach landing scene's are horrifically realistic,showing the viewer as best a film can what it must of been like for those men on that fatal morning in June 1944. When them landing craft ramps went down all hell broke loss and the US Rangers were just cannon fodder for the German's up above in their machine gun bunker's. A lot as been said about the miss-leading of the Normandy beach landing scene in the beginning of SPR,Some Viewer's of the film say that the overload operation lead by the British,Canadian AND American's were not as blood thirsty as has portrayed in this film. Yes this true,It is a fact that only 1 out of every 7 allied soldiers actually fired a weapon on D-Day. But Omagh was as chilling as it is seen in SPR.
After the first 30 minutes of one of the most graphically violent battle scenes ever witnessed on screen the film moves onto it it's main story.8 soldiers lead by capt Miller on a mission to find a private in the 101st airborne division lost somewhere in Normandy so that he can return him home to his mother after the US top brass as learned that three of her sons have just been killed in combat.A bit of a PR mission so to say. Through the mission the GI's tell us of their views of the war and the mission they are on(whats the point of risking eight lives to save one?) Some are killed in combat along the way as they meet German opposition raising the pointless of the mission with anger among the men.Till they eventually find pvt Ryan who as hooked up with another platoon that are defending a bridge that the Germans want for their counter attack.
All this lead's to a grand finale battle between the American GI's and the battle hardened waffen SS inside a bombed out Normandy village.
The battle scenes in SPR are authentic enough ,first on Omagh after a pinned down onslaught the rangers make easy pray of the German troops,This is because the German regiment's along the Normandy coast were mainly made up of eastern European conscripts captured from German occupied territory in the east and forced to fight by the Nazi's in German divisions.Hitler thought the main landing zone for the allies would most likely be Calias.So the front line worriment were stationed there. But in the final battle scene in this film the GI's faced much more resilient opposition in the form of the SS who we see give the American's a real fight.(The GI's are only saved from being wiped by the SS thanks to an air attack on the German line by P51's)
All in all "saving private Ryan" is an excellent movie if you like bloody all out war battle scene's.The director Steven Spielberg brings the killing scenes right up close to the camera.The script is OK but can be a bit sentimentally at time's(trying to reason war through the eye's of Spielberg..in dialogue from the characters by the way)but this isn't enough of a problem to spoil the film.