Saving Private Ryan is one of the few films you can watch multiple times, never losing the impact it had the first time around. Today marks the 60th anniversary of D-Day and to commemorate the occasion, we get a new release of the Spielberg classic. This new 2-disc set isn't the most spectacular DVD release of all time, but the audio and video presentation is some of the best on the market. This disc is also available in a box set featuring two other documentaries.
Captain Tom Miller, played by Tom Hanks, leads his troop through the brutal D-Day invasion. As they make their way up the beach onto to calmer ground, Miller receives special orders to go into enemy territory to retrieve James Ryan (Matt Damon) who's three brothers have been killed in combat. Little do they know it's all for publicity. Not only must Miller keep up the spirits of his troops who are against the rescue mission, but fend off countless enemy bombardments on their way to try and get the Private back home.
This is, almost without any doubt, the greatest war movie ever made. This is not an action film, but a drama with some of the most horrific battle sequences ever put on film. Within the first ten minutes you'll see a man drown, watch a soldier look for his arm that has been blown off, and blood filled water soak the beach. None of the violence is glorified as the stunning washed out color tones don't allow for it. Amazingly, the best sequence in the film is not an action scene, but a moment when Miller and Ryan sit down in a war torn town. Here, Damon shows why this is his best performance as he recollects an incident with his brothers. Though he laughs telling the story, it's actually quite heart wrenching as you know deep down he's not sure why he was the only one left. This is a film that has no dull moments, never seems to drag on, and ends up being one of the best movies of all time. (***** out of *****)
Article comments
1 - jadester
"This is, almost without any doubt, the greatest war movie ever made."
actually, i doubt that. Saving private Ryan is good, but there are better war films out there.
Platoon.
Apocalypse Now (if you count it as a war film, though i realise it's a little more specialised)
I hear some older WWII films are good too.
2 - Eric Olsen
I agree that SPR is brilliant and disturbing and one of the gret war films. I still have nightmares about the opening sequence and the final battle where Hanks and Sizemore just sort of eke away. Thanks Matt!
3 - Matt Paprocki
Platoon was a great movie for sure, but it doesn't have the "pull" of SPR. The performances hee are just stunning, and, as I said, especially Matt Damon. Like I said in the review, that sit down scene is my fave of all time. Apocalypse Now just didn't appeal to me at all. I know it's a classic, but it's just out there. I've seen alot of older WWII movies. One of the most famous is the Longest Day. Just watch both this and SPR. You'll see why SPR is just so much better.
4 - Chris Kent
I don't know Matt, I don't like any film that makes war seem glorious and spiritually uplifting. Saving Private Ryan was far too syrupy for my taste, and the frame, where the elder Matt Damon with family in tow visits the D-Day Memorial site is so embarassingly bad as to almost ruin the entire film. The opening D-Day sequence is brilliant, but then it becomes far too conventional and unbelievable - I was expecting Sgt. Rock to make an appearance second.....Hanks was very good, but the rest of the performances were flat.
Best war films of all time:
Platoon
Thin Red Line
Cross of Iron
Paths of Glory
Sands of Iwo Jima
Go Tell the Spartans
All Quiet on the Western Front
All Quiet on the Western Front (TV version)
The Big Red One
Red Badge of Courage
To Hell and Back
I also thought, ironically, that TV's Band of Brothers was superior, though I know Hanks and Spielberg were involved with that.....
5 - Matt Paprocki
SPR made made war seem glorious? Though yes, the scene at the memorial is a bit on the "syrupy" side (audiences need that nowadays), I think once you see the guy walking around on the beach looking for his arm that has just been blown off, it's far from being glorified.
I've had Thin Red Line on my shelf for about a year. I REALLY need to watch that one. People have told me it's a bit "out there," but I still want to see it.
Sands of Iwo Jima is good, but if your going to bash the performances in SPR, then surely you can't look at Sands as having great acting. That stoic style of the era just isn't the same.
Oh, and Band of Brothers was amazing too. Great DVD set also. Really can't be compared since it's around 10 hours long. =;)
6 - Chris Kent
I don't disagree with you 100 percent on Sands of Iwo Jima. It is dated, but for its time, a realistic view of war, combat and all the shit that comes with war. A bit dated, but still very good.
Saving Private Ryan shows us the reality of war in the opening sequence, and several death scenes are terrifying. But then you have the conventional battle scenes where the underdogs are trying to fight off the German hordes (the concluding battle, which I did not find believable) only to be saved by the cavalry......
And why not compare Band of Brothers with Saving Private Ryan? We are talking about war films, quality, reality or lack there of......Sure, one is longer than the other, but both films are about WWII and war in general......I thought Band of Brothers was far more realistic and innovative.......
7 - Matt Paprocki
Why not B.O.B.? It's not technically a movie. It's a series. I'm sure that no matter how good it may be, sitting down and watching it for 10 straight hours would take some patience. For that, I really don't think they can be mentioned in the same vein.
Also, the reason they look like underdog is because they were. The troop was quite small up against numbers that your not even sure of.
What was it about the final sequence that was unbelieveable to you?
8 - Chris Kent
Matt,
We'll agree to disagree on Band of Brothers, Saving Private Ryan comparison, though am glad to see you appreciated it as much as I did.
I too thought the scene where Matt Damon discussed his brothers was very, very good, and think it was an alert catch by you. It was an excellent moment, and perhaps one of the best of Damon's career.
As for the final battle, it was kind of like the gunfighters from The Magnificient Seven preparing for battle against the approaching banditos, or John Wayne and company reinforcing the Alamo walls, hopelessly outnumbered, lounging around discussing life, creating resourceful weapons to help even the odds. Battle is never so convenient, usually happening when one least expects it, complete chaos, disorganized and ugly. Spielberg had some nice directorial touches during said sequence, but it was a far too conventional setup, and could have just as easily taken place in a film starring Steve McQueen or even Clint Eastwood many years earlier. This battle was not even remotely based on fact, but was created for the film viewer's pleasure. It was poetic and entertaining, but for a film supposedly showing the realities of war, it was the most conventional of the several battles which take place.
It was as if Spielberg said, "I gave you the realities earlier in the film, not let me give you a heroic glorious battle straight out of a myth-making western."
I thought Saving Private Ryan was an uneven film. There are moments of spectacular brilliance, and others which do not ring true. I've seen it, I guess, three times, and each time I take more from it. Like Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket, it is a powerful film about war, created by a master, but still a leaky vessel...
9 - Kelly Camponucci Coffey
Hi everybody I am searching for some information about the differences between the book Saving private Ryan by Max Allan Collins and the film, I need make a simple presentation about the book, some one could help me? Thanks for your time.
10 - J D H
Two questions about historical accuracy:
FUBAR is frequently used in SPR. I believe that SNAFU was much more common in the 1940s.
One source does say that "Electronics engineers say that SNAFU and FUBAR were used before World War II by repairmen sent out to repair phone booths." But I think that FUBAR continued as a techie term, especially with those born in the 1970s and later. Soldiers in WW 2 did not, I don't think, use FUBAR. Things were SNAFUed.
NEXT: Combat boots, not spats, were worn by GIs in WW 2. My dad returned from having fought in the second wave of the Sicilian invasion with a pair. I dought that GIs at Normandy wore spats.
Please confirm or deny.
11 - STM
In reply to JDH:
My father served in the British Army of The Rhine (BAOR) and grew up in war-time Britain. He has informed me in the past that SNAFU (situation normal, all f..ked up) was a term used by GIs both during and after the war and that it then went into common usage, even being used by his own countrymen (as were many US military terms, which is why I've always doubted the origin of the term "whole nine yards" relates to the length of an aircraft machine-gun belt).
He regularly used the term and I remember it being common around our place as a kid.
And spats actually were worn in combat over boots by US troops in the European theatre. I have a photograph somewhere of him and some of his British squaddies in combat-style uniform taken in Germany soon after the war ... they are with some US Army friends, also in combat-style gear, some of whom are wearing spats. They all look happy, too, so I suspect they'd been having a few quiet ones.
And to Chris Kent:
Good list, but I'd lose a few and add A Bridge too Far (about the Allied airborne assault on Holland in 1944) and Breaker Morant (a true story about an Englishman and two Australians from a mounted special forces unit shooting prisoners during the Boer War in 1901, and one of the best movies, war or otherwise, that I've seen. Because it's historically accurate, it has great parallels to Vietnam and Iraq, so a viewing is very timely).