Saving Private Ryan
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sisemore, Edward Burns, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Vin Diesel, Giovanni Ribisi, Jeremy Davies, and Matt Damon
One of the most brutal, gripping, heart-breaking, and uplifting films ever made, “Saving Private Ryan” is one movie no American should miss. This film is almost as perfect as it gets; I cannot praise “Saving Private Ryan” enough. The five time Academy Award winning film is worth every second of it’s almost three hour run time. Granted this is one of the most violent films ever made, showing the unimaginable horrors of the D-Day invasion down to flying body parts, gushing wounds, and spraying blood.
The violence is not of the mind-numbing and gratuitous sort though. Spielberg did not make the violence and gore for the purpose of entertainment. It is instead as realistic as you can imagine, and draws the audience in to the scene, capturing the imagination, and churning our stomachs. But the violence is counterbalanced by the beautiful French country-side, a wonderful plot, and characters that that are well developed to the point that we as an audience are heartbroken at every death, and elated by every act of heroism.
“Saving Private Ryan” is not just a war movie. There are plenty of movies out there that exist on the raw battles and action scenes with little character development. Here there is an excellent combination of the two. Each action scene is well balanced by great dialogue that connects the audience to the individual characters. In just a few lines, and short scenes we see a fully developed human being in each character. I wasn’t forced to watch three hours of people being shot and blown up only to wonder if I really cared who lived and who died. Instead every one of the main characters had qualities that made them whole individuals and not just cannon fodder for the screen.
The movie starts off with the most heartrending war scene ever depicted in a motion picture. The action is chaotic and senseless. The audience feels like they are running onto Omaha beach themselves, lost in the spray of German machineguns. It is the scariest, most thrilling 30 minutes of war footage ever depicted, and also manages to build the characters we come to love through the duration of the film.
Tom Hanks leads a group of seven other men through Nazi occupied France looking for Private Ryan. Their mission is to find and extract Private Ryan, who has earned a ticket home through the death of his other three brothers in different parts of the war in a three week period. The eight men can all see the ridiculousness of their mission. Risk eight lives for one? A complete waste of men, right? This emotional struggle runs throughout the film as disaster strikes the men at every turn. Spielberg is not afraid to let our heroes die, and each death felt like I lost a personal friend, a man that I admired through all his weaknesses. These are not super heroes, but sons and brothers, fathers and husbands, and while watching I found that these were men I could relate with, and each one was someone who was making the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom of others.
Saving Private Ryan is a film that I would not have missed for the world. It is exciting, full of excellently written dialogue and took me on the emotional roller coaster that I crave in good film making. I enjoyed almost everything about the film, and while it is violent beyond any proportions I have ever seen “Saving Private Ryan” is still a beautiful film that earns a 9.8 out of 10 in my book. If the violence had been toned down a hair it would have been a 10 out of 10, that is my only complaint.
I laughed, I cried, I loved “Saving Privet Ryan.”
Sex/nudity – 2 out of 10 - There are a few sexual references and two men tell stories from home that involves a little sexuality.
Violence/Gore – 10 out of 10 – it is war, it is violent, if it can happen it does. It is very realistic, but not for the purpose of entertainment, more for the purpose of showing the horrors of war.
Profanity – 7 out of 10 – 20 to 25 ‘F’ words and quite a few other swear words.
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