# Saving Private Ryan (1998)

### reviewed by
Scott Renshaw

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN (DreamWorks) Starring: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Edward Burns, Jeremy Davies, Matt Damon, Barry Pepper, Adam Goldberg, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel. Screenplay: Robert Rodat. Producers: Steven Spielberg, Ian Bryce, Mark Gordon & Gary Levinsohn. Director: Steven Spielberg. MPAA Rating: R (intense wartime violence and gore, profanity) Running Time: 170 minutes. Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

The first and last image in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, a war story of shattering visceral and emotional force, is an American flag waving in the breeze. It's a bold choice, one that defines what makes this film so unique among modern war films. For over 25 years in the post-Vietnam era, American war films have reminded us over and over again that war is a chaotic and futile endeavor characterized by gleeful brutality and morality of convenience. Even the most well-received examples -- THE DEER HUNTER, APOCALYPSE NOW, PLATOON, FULL METAL JACKET -- trafficked in violence and psychological devastation as though they were the only facets of the wartime experience worth exploring. The stories were less about the people in war than about war itself as an existential disease. Being "anti-war" had become about as meaningful as being "anti-cancer."

SAVING PRIVATE RYAN may be the most mature war film ever made, because it combines the horrifying realism of contemporary war films with the sense of purpose conveyed in the patriotic adventures of the 1940s. The primary action begins with the June 6, 1944 invasion of Normandy, focusing on a Ranger company under the command of Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks). After making it through the first push at Omaha Beach, Miller and his company find themselves handed a mission with an angle more political than tactical. It seems that three Iowa brothers have all been killed in action, leaving Pvt. James Ryan (Matt Damon) his mother's only surviving son. General George Marshall himself decides that Private Ryan _will_ make it home alive, and assigns Miller and his company the task of risking their lives to save Private Ryan's.

The reluctance of Miller's men to take on this mission is understandable, since it's amazing enought that any of them survived the initial assault on the beach. Spielberg stages the 25-minute Omaha Beach sequence as a savage, gut-churning frenzy of torn limbs and bullet-riddled bodies. It's hard to begin describing the film artistry involved: that half hour is disturbing, surreal, at times darkly humorous, simultaneously too intense to watch and impossible _not_ to watch. Some images come and go with a shivery subliminal quickness; others linger on undisguised human suffering. If it had been Spielberg's intent to play a game of wartime can-you-top-this with his contemporary peers -- and you never believe for a second that it was -- the contest wouldn't even be close. Cinematic warfare has never been more agonizing.

Nor, in its way, has it ever been more human. Screenwriter Robert Rodat crafts Miller and his team as a collection of distinct individuals, making every death and every anguished decision personal. Hanks delivers his finest performance yet as Miller, whose trembling hand betrays demons his men can only guess at; Barry Pepper radiates steely-eyed confidence as sharpshooter Pvt. Jackson; Adam Goldberg is slick but determined as the Jewish Pvt. Mellish, who makes sure every German he encounters knows he takes this war personally. The most harrowing performance, however, comes from Jeremy Davies as Cpl. Upham, the college-educated translator called into his first duty with gun in hand. Cliches like "loss of innocence" don't do justice to the transformation Upham undergoes in a moment of paralysis which risks the lives of fellow soldiers. It's even more disturbing when a German soldier passes Upham as though he were not even worth the trouble of killing. In one brilliantly acted scene, Upham's psyche vanishes into the rubble.

But cowardice is only one side of the complex story in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. This being a tale of the "last noble war" in American history, it's also about heroism, though not in a conventional sense. Faced with an assignment everyone considers FUBAR -- an acronym for the saltier version of "fouled up beyond all recognition" -- Miller and his men are forced to make it make sense. This is the sort of heroism SAVING PRIVATE RYAN examines: not the heroism of men fighting an obviously evil enemy for an obviously just cause, but the heroism of men taking responsibility for doing their duty to the best of their ability. Honor becomes something quite distinct from the nation's political or military objectives. It becomes the ability to make meaning from the hell war always has been and always will be.

Steven Spielberg, who set a new standard for himself with SCHINDLER'S LIST, actually manages to raise that standard in SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, which isn't to say that it's a perfect film. John Williams score may not be as intrusive as it was in AMISTAD -- but then, how _could_ it be? -- but it still underscores scenes best left silent, and one late scene is a bit too reminiscent of Schindler's "I could have done more" speech. Yet even in that moment Spielberg drives home his unique, provocative vision. Late in the film, a character tells Ryan, "Earn this," handing him the responsibility for making his life -- and the lives of those who died for his sake -- matter. That waving flag which opens and closes SAVING PRIVATE RYAN is a challenging sort of patriotism, free from self-righteous over-simplifications like "good war" vs. "bad war." With the grace and power of great cinema, Spielberg makes accountability in the midst of tragedy absolutely individual. He forces you to stare inward and ask whether you've earned this -- this life, this country, this freedom.

         On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 lives during wartime:  10.

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