Review of Saving Private Ryan (1998) by Dominik A — 19 Jun 2016

This is genuinely my most favourite film. Having watched it recently (May 2016) I was, rather unsurprisingly, emotionally affected.

The film has a perfect blend of intense action and a unique war-time narrative. I feel though, however, that the smaller stories behind each of the characters really added to their plausibility. The film pulls off character development and action in such a way that you would be forgiven for thinking that this film was a documentary (maybe that is pushing it a bit).

When one talks about Saving Private Ryan, you have to consider the ground-breaking opening D-Day sequence that was so brutal that, at the time of release, real WW2 veterans walked out of the film because it was so similar to how they experienced it.

Spielberg stated that during the pre-production of the film that he wanted the film to not glamourise war, as many films did previously, and it does show (the image of one soldier picking up his own dismembered arm during the opening sequence comes to mind).

Unlike previous films in which the traditional view of Allies good and Axis bad, Saving Private Ryan does not do this; no character is presented in such a way that would show them as wholly good or wholly evil, every character has a purpose or, more specifically, an understandable humanistic goal.

I thoroughly recommend that anyone who even considers watching this film do so because it is easily one of the greatest films ever made. However I would warn you that there are plenty of opportunities to be affected emotionally. Such a film is so good that you will think about it for weeks after watching it. True cinematic perfection.