From the extraordinary opening sequence to the dramatic finale, Private Ryan reaches every available high and faces every low with a tense feeling of it’s surrounding. Winning 5 Academy Awards, one for Spielberg himself for best Director, is an accomplishment, especially for Spielberg, but still sounds poor given the quality of this movie.
Tom Hanks, Oscar winner for Philadelphia and Forrest Gump plays Captain Miller who has to embark on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines to find a Private James Ryan, the only surviving member of a family of fighters involved in the war to end all wars.
Ryan’s other three brothers have all been killed in combat and the U.S Government want Miller to return Ryan to his grieving mother.
Faced with these impossible odds the team set off in search of this mysterious “Ryan”.
The team track across open ground, shelled cities and bloody beaches, they are centered in conflict, surrounded by the horrific and brutal realities of war. Each man looks inside himself, searching for their own personal answer.
Miller and the team track Ryan down to a shattered city that he, and a small team of Privates, are defending.
Miller decides to help out and, against his morals and team’s requests, fight to the bitter end.
Miller, Ryan and the team fight off the invading Nazi’s and the Luftwaffer to the best of their abilities.
Can the team survive and gain strength from the occasion?
Live through an uncertain future with decency and courage?
Win the war and, ultimately win the Medal of honour.
A man who keeps faith and holds everything together while simultaneously cowers and weeps whilst everything around him is falling and been destroyed.
The supporting cast is also splendid. Edward Burns plays Private Reiben with ease and Tom Sizemore stars as Sergeant Horvath in his finest performance to date.
Giovanni Ribisi plays weedy Medic Wade and, in my opinion, steals the film. He is one of Hollywood’s up and coming greats. So why was he reduced to appearing in the lacklustre action film ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’?
Cowardly interpreter Corporal Upham is played with relish and ease by Jeremy Davis, some say too well.
In Fact, I believe, the character is based on Spielberg himself. That is how he would react in the face of war.
Upham acts as the confusion personified in a week man. He speaks to the crying french child whilst an unidentified assassin is searching for it’s next target and is also the one man who keeps his morals while the rest of the team want to shoot the giant Nazi.
Another soon-to-be Hollywood legend Matt Damon finally added his name to the celebrity A-list by staring as Private Ryan, the victim of the movie.
I think Ryan is portrayed as the victim of the movie by showing the ‘old’ Ryan at the end asking the question –
“Tell me I’ve led a good life?”
He feels he is to blame for the death of the team and wonders if it was worth it?
At the end we see in the background a group of small children, teenage girls and old women. This answers the question. He obviously has had a good life and has numerous grand-children.
It was worth it!
An absolutly amazing look at the war through the eyes of scared individuals with gritty, bloody realism.
Rodat’s fast paced script and Spielberg’s slick and smooth direction seems to throw you into the screen and make you witness, first hand, the horror of battle. Spielberg seems to make our eyes stick to the screen and experience the rip-roaring roller-coaster ride, through every dark tunnel and over every demolished building.
A true classic. Give Hanks another Oscar, probably needs another book-end for all the scrip’s he’s not gonna read.