Review of Saving Private Ryan (1998) by Wesley W — 01 Mar 2014

In my opinion, the very best war film ever made and one of the greatest movies of all time. How did Shakespeare in Love win Best Picture over this? How? This picture succeeds a lot more at leaving the viewer with an impact.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Shakespeare in Love but in my opinion it doesn't compare with Saving Private Ryan. Everything shines in this movie, the acting, directing, and writing. The battle scenes here are some of the best ever filmed in any action movie in the past 30 years.

They are some of the most realistic and brutal battle sequences ever made and there are moments that are emotionally impacting and hard to watch. The time it took to perfect those memorable scenes is astounding.

This film with it's violence, shows the hardship of being in a war zone and trying to survive. The acting from everybody is fantastic and the characters were all believable and felt like real people going through tough situations.

Tom Hanks in my opinion, gives one of his best performances here and it is up to par with his other performances in Forrest Gump, Big, Philadelphia, and Captain Philips. Matt Damon did great as well for the amount of time he was on screen.

This film was expertly directed in every way by Steven Spielberg and this is up to par with his other emotional masterpiece Schindler's List. He is a man who knows how to make movies that end up leaving an impact on the viewer and he sure as hell deserved his Best Director oscar with this memorable masterpiece of a film.

Steven Spielberg is one of the best directors in Hollywood and for good reason because there isn't a movie of his that I can think of that ended up being bad. The dialogue here in my opinion, was well written and you got to know the characters and care about them when they were in battle and you get know the experiences these men went through.

After the film ends, you are left emotionally impacted and you want to watch this movie several times per year. This movie really does redefine the genre and it sets the bar highest in my opinion for all World War II films.