History aside, "Saving Private Ryan" is one of the greatest propaganda films ever made and grittily epic visualizing at its finest

Rating: 9/10 (13 November 2008)

Although I have had this film's DVD for a few years now, I had never been intrigued by war films and always thought of them as preachy propaganda in one way or the other. But I happened to stumble across "Saving Private Ryan" as our class was doing a WWII project, and so decided to watch it. Although maybe it was preachy (somewhat) and yet still not extremely historically accurate (I should know, considering that I watched it for a history project), one thing that I could not deny with an open mind is that Saving Private Ryan is epic film-making at its finest.
As far as the story is concerned, I won't go too deep into historical accuracy, but as long as the important things are set straight and the story makes sense on its own, I'm happy with it. That being said, there should have been more effort put into showing how other Allied nations besides America contributed to the war, at least during the beach landing sequence. This is my biggest gripe with the story, and even then it's a fairly minor gripe.
Some more background on the war would have also helped a lot to lend that extra authenticity edge to the movie, but the lack of it doesn't come down hard at all since most of us know it anyways. Aside from that, the story is fairly straightforward, which is good, since most of it is packed with great, amazingly cinematographed action sequences, and even better, the high-impact action is nicely balanced out by a few tender moments  making Saving Private Ryan more than just a war-themed action film.
However, the whole mission of 'saving Private Ryan'  for which our heroes risk their lives  should've been justified more deeply, with more than just an Abraham Lincoln speech. And another thing that could've cleared up many misconceptions was the movie's name; Pvt. Ryan, despite being talked about throughout the movie, appears for like 15 minutes on screen, and even then has very little character development. Heck, the movie's tagline would've made for a more suitable title ("The Mission is A Man"). In fact, Pvt. Ryan is almost relegated to a minor character when it comes to screenplay, as the movie centers almost entirely around Tom Hanks' Capt. John Miller, who is also the most fleshed-out character in the movie  perhaps the only one, in fact, but considering the movie's runtime, focusing on a few characters is a good thing.
Like most others', my favorite scene from the movie was the Normandy beach landing at the beginning, which is one of the most intense sequences I've ever seen in a movie. If there is one vital thing that this scene would be incomplete without, it is the cinematography  the shaky hand-held camera-work wonderfully evokes the feeling that the viewer is seeing the whole thing through the eyes of one of the soldiers fighting on the beach, and it leaves a very strong impression. There are also dramatic depictions of shell shock and tons of realistic hardcore gore, none of which feels gratuitous in context of the overall turbulence of the entire sequence. The sound is just as good, as gunshots and machine-gun fire booms loud and clear amidst frantic last cries, groans and screaming of soldiers.
The cinematography, production design and acting are top-notch all across the board throughout the movie. Tom Hanks' performance is particularly moving and resonant. The cinematography is greatly helped by the 'handy-cam' style of camera-work and use of appropriately grayish color palettes. When it comes to the production design, destroyed villages and pastures look like they should, with dead rotting cows and all, while the piles of garbage that are found in abundance throughout the movie are also meticulously detailed, complete with chunks of 1940s-looking weaponry sticking out of them.
All in all, Saving Private Ryan is one of the best war propaganda films ever made, if not the best (and I mean it positively)  but my dilemma was right, it is still a propaganda film because according to this movie all Nazis are one-dimensional, motiveless and spineless, but considering how good the movie already is with its current premise, I couldn't really ask for more. And besides, with a famously Jewish director, what else can you ask for? Regardless, Saving Private Ryan is without doubt among the finest movies in its dimension and in its genre. RATING: 9/10.