Product Description
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Steven Spielberg directed this powerful, realistic re-creation
of WWII's D-day invasion and the immediate aftermath. The story
opens with a prologue in which a veteran brings his family to the
American cemetery at Normandy, and a flashback then joins Capt.
John Miller (Tom Hanks) and GIs in a landing craft making the
June 6, 1944, approach to Omaha Beach to face devastating German
artillery fire. This mass slaughter of American soldiers is
depicted in a compelling, unforgettable 24-minute sequence.
Miller's men slowly move forward to finally take a concrete
pillbox. On the beach littered with bodies is one with the name
"Ryan" stenciled on his backpack. Army Chief of Staff Gen. George
C. Marshall (Harve Presnell), learning that three Ryan brothers
from the same family have all been killed in a single week,
requests that the surviving brother, Pvt. James Ryan (Matt
Damon), be located and brought back to the United States. Capt.
Miller gets the assignment, and he chooses a translator, Cpl.
Upham (Jeremy Davis), skilled in language but not in combat, to
join his squad of right-hand man Sgt. Horvath (Tom Sizemore),
plus privates Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Medic Wade (Giovanni
Ribisi), cynical Reiben (Edward Burns) from Brooklyn,
Italian-American Caparzo (Vin Diesel), and religious Southerner
Jackson (Barry Pepper), an ace sharpshooter who calls on the Lord
while taking . Having previously experienced action in Italy
and North Africa, the close-knit squad sets out through areas
still thick with Nazis. After they lose one man in a skirmish at
a bombed village, some in the group begin to question the logic
of losing more lives to save a single soldier. The film's
historical consultant is Stephen E. Ambrose, and the incident is
based on a true occurrence in Ambrose's 1994 bestseller D-Day:
June 6, 1944.
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When Steven Spielberg was an adolescent, his first home movie
was a backyard war film. When he toured Europe with Duel in his
20s, he saw old men crumble in front of headstones at Omaha
Beach. That image became the opening scene of Saving Private
Ryan, his film of a mission following the D-day invasion that
many have called the most realistic--and maybe the best--war film
ever. With 1998 production standards, Spielberg has been able to
create a stunning, unparalleled view of war as hell. We are at
Omaha Beach as troops are slaughtered by Germans yet overcome the
almost insurable odds. A stalwart Tom Hanks plays Captain
Miller, a soldier's soldier, who takes a small band of troops
behind enemy lines to retrieve a private whose three brothers
have recently been killed in action. It's a public relations move
for the Army, but it has historical precedent dating back to the
Civil War. Some critics of the film have labeled the central
characters stereotypes. If that is so, this movie gives
stereotypes a good name: Tom Sizemore as the deft sergeant,
Edward Burns as the hotheaded Private Reiben, Barry Pepper as the
religious sniper, Adam Goldberg as the lone Jew, Vin Diesel as
the oversize Private Caparzo, Giovanni Ribisi as the soulful
medic, and Jeremy Davies, who as a meek corporal gives the film
its most memorable performance. The movie is as heavy and
realistic as Spielberg's O-winning Schindler's List, but it's
more kinetic. Spielberg and his ace technicians (the film won
five Os: editing (Michael Kahn), cinematography (Janusz
Kaminski), sound, sound effects, and directing) deliver battle
sequences that wash over the eyes and hit the gut. The violence
is extreme but never gratuitous. The final battle, a dizzying
display of gusto, empathy, and chaos, leads to a profound repose.
Saving Private Ryan touches us deeper than Schindler because it
succinctly links the past with how we should feel today. It's the
film Spielberg was destined to make. --Doug Thomas