I have finally decided to review my favorite movie, Saving Private Ryan. This movie was release in 1998 and received five Academy Awards including Best Director for Steven Spielberg. Tom Hanks and Matt Damon star is this movie, with Hanks playing the Captain sent to rescue Private Ryan who is played by Damon. Saving Private Ryan takes place during World War II and is based on a true story. While it is not a true story, its historical accuracy and outstanding acting makes it a compelling war movie.

Awards

Saving Private Ryan received many awards. Along with the five Academy Awards, this movie won three Oscars, was named Best picture of the year by over 70 foreign and American film critics and was nominated for countless other awards. Steven Spielberg was awarded for his work with a Spirit of Normandy Award, a USO Merit Award and the highest civilian public service award given by the Department of the Army.

Acting

Tom Hanks did an excellent job as the lead actor in Saving Private Ryan. He and the rest of the actors gave the viewer the feeling that they had actually lived through the war. They showed dedication as actors and as soldiers that set this movie apart from all others. Their hard work made Saving Private Ryan unforgettable to its viewers and set a standard for all other war movies to live up to. The main actors were not alone in making this unforgettable, the extras who helped storm the beaches of Normandy and the countless Germans all helped to make this movie a believable story.

Review

Saving Private Ryan begins with American soldiers storming the beaches of Normandy. The viewer is shocked to see how quickly soldiers were gunned down, many never having the chance to defend themselves and others too terrified to even leave the boat that they were brought in upon. American soldiers slowly advanced up the beach and eventually took it over, but at a staggering loss. The viewer immediately learns that this is not a movie for those with a weak stomach, but instead shows the true horrors of war.

Saving Private Ryan was deafening in movie theaters. D-day was jaw-dropping with the amount of wounded and dead soldiers floating in the water and lying on the beach. Spielberg did a wonderful job of catching the attention of the view by showing the soldiers as they struggled to survive underwater and as well as above, something that you would never imagine seeing in a World War II movie.

Special Effects

Saving Private Ryan has special effects unlike any other war movie that I have seen. There is nothing held back when a soldier is shot. A man is seen holding his internal organs inside of his body so that they don’t fall out. A man is shot through the head and a man is even seen searching for his own severed arm. The water at Normandy was stained with the blood of Americans, making the movie more realistic and even more believable. Without these special effects, Saving Private Ryan would be a far inferior movie.

More Review

Saving Private Ryan is not a true story. Eight men were not sent out into Europe to rescue one lowly Private after he had lost all of his brothers in the war. In reality, a woman did lose five of her sons in the Civil War while they were fighting to save the union. Her loss did not go unnoticed, and a letter written by President Abraham Lincoln was sent to her notifying her of her loss, but also reminding her that their lived were not wasted, they were lost trying to save something that they believed in.

The movie review that I have chosen to use is written by Kenneth Turan. Kenneth Turan thought so highly of this movie that he said “More than any of his other films, and that includes Schindler's List, Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan won't leave you alone. To see it is to need to talk about it, to wrestle both with the formidable impact of its unprecedented strengths and the surprising resilience of its niggling weaknesses. A powerful and impressive milestone in the realistic depiction of combat, Saving Private Ryan is as much an experience we live through as a film we watch on screen,” (www.hollywood.com).

Turan went on to say that Saving Private Ryan shows soldiers behaving in a way that we all hope to behave if we were ever put into the same situation. He strongly believes that Spielberg is the best war movie director and believes that this movie succeed because the director was finally able to challenge himself by making a movie so accurate and compelling that it can affect the way any viewer sees war. He believes that Spielberg had such an interest in this movie because his father is a war veteran and he knew the effects of war on the human mind.

Conclusion

I wholeheartedly agree with Turan that Saving Private Ryan is the best war movie ever created. Steven Spielberg did an excellent job capturing the feelings of soldiers as they set out to complete an impossible task with death always threatening their lives. I too would hope to behave as unselfishly as these men if I were ever put into a situation such as this. Saving Private Ryan does a remarkable job showing the public that war is not glamorous, instead, it instills one feeling into the viewer mind; people die in war.




Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older