Well then, may as well start with a good film to review to get me underway.
The piece is set at the beginning of the greatest invasion in human history. A massive undertaking that changed the balance of a war and turned a psychological corner on both sides. Although the D-Day landing were still dwarfed in size by the sheer scale of the confrontation on the Eastern Front of World War 2 (where our glorious comrades already had the fascists on the back-foot), its failure could have resulted in anything. The bulk of this film focuses in on one small group of men, and in particular on Captain Miller (Tom Hanks), from their tumultuous arrival on the beaches of Normandy through those tense early days after the beachead was made.
The D-Day landings. Saving Private Ryan starts with events at Omaha Beach
One thing about this film that stays with me as setting it slightly apart from the bulk of others is the way that the human side is handled. By this I mean that usually the overriding plot arc places the military objective as the basis for a successful ending, and the personalities and goals of the protagonists are secondary twists to fill out characters and these can be sacrificed in order to fulfil the mission of blowing up the bridge, stealing the documents, or capturing the town. In Saving Private Ryan, the human part is the objective, quite literally as Captain Miller is sent with a small team of the 2nd Rangers across a warzone to retrieve the last surviving son of a woman who has lost her other children to the war. The moral question of risking the lives of several men to find and save one other is repeatedly raised, particularly as the inevitable attrition ocurrs and men who are obviously known by the Captain and his unit are killed. I think that the way in which this is dealt with throughout the film is what keeps the audience’ attention.
As a war film, one should expect a decent review to comment on the action. Well, there is plenty of it here- possibly one of the most famous opening scenes in film history. Spielberg’s direction is amazing at capturing the terror and chaos of the combat. The action, however, is not portrayed as to be enjoyed in a popcorn sense- this film makes no bones about the indiscriminate brutality and to have compromised on this would have done as great a diservice to those who actually fought in the war as it would to have shown them easily swatting aside the evil Nazis whilst cracking one-liners.
The opening scene received praise from veterans of the beach landing for its accuracy.
Overall, this film was a critical and commercial success, and rightly so. It comments on the value of life, even in the middle of the most brutal of conflicts. The characters are succintly but poignantly portrayed by talent both established and new at the time, and a production team that truly new what it was doing.
9/10
what is it good for?? 