REVIEW: Saving Private Ryan By Luke Buckmaster (bucky@alphalink.com.au)
Cast: Tom Hanks, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Edward Burns, Jeremy Davies, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi Director: Steven Spielberg Screenplay: Robert Rodat
Australian theatrical release date: November 19, 1998
On the Buckmaster scale of 0 stars (bomb), to 5 stars (a masterpiece): 5 stars
Only hours after viewing this film, horrifying images of war and sacrifice haunt my mind. I know these will last for days, maybe weeks. Steven Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan is as much about the devastation of war as it is the nature of human sanity. This off and on director challenges the influence and power of contemporary cinema, pushing the boundaries of his medium as far as he can go and stops just before bursting into horror and trepidation. Spielberg pulls all the right cinematic strings, but ultimately Saving Private Ryan is more of an experience than it is a movie.
The first half-hour or so is undoubtedly one of the finest pieces in film history. It is an excruciating scene set in Ohama Beach, Normandy, at the time of the D-Day massacre. Cameras pans across the shoreline and land, capturing American soldiers fighting as they try to reach the offending troops, many gunned down from higher ground. The tension is almost unbearable.
Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks) is the commanding officer of a team consisting of eight men. They are assigned to an unusual mission: to find and retrieve Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), whose mother has received telegrams and a visit from the priest after her other three sons were killed in action. General George Marshall decides that Ryan will make it home, so Miller and his crew contemplate risking their eight lives to save one. Rationalizing between the mission and the men is never an easy thing for Miller to do; but this time, the mission is a man.
The sheer visceral force of Saving Private Ryan is enough to evoke all sorts of reactions, but Spielberg's intentions are more than just to shock his audience. With the aid of writer Robert Rodat's (Fly Away Home) potent screenplay, he examines all aspects of war, whilst never losing sight of developing character and setting. This makes the battle of governments and tactics appear as something much more individual, as each of the eight men convey their unique demeanors and try to make sense of a ludicrous war.
Even after his expert performances in Philadelphia, Forrest Gump and Apollo 13, Tom Hanks has managed to step up a few notches. Hanks plays Miller deliberately restrained; he doesn't look like a glorified hero, he looks like an ordinary man outside of his comfortable environs. Rodat has crafted Miller as a mysterious leader who is bound by personal motives to earn his way back to his wife, back to civilization. "Each person I kill makes me feel further away from home," Miller explains, as his feelings begin to unravel.
Jeremy Davies is painfully realistic as Cpl. Upham, a translator who has never been in combat before. His harrowing portrayal of a weak willed man is amongst the film's finest. Tom Sizemore gives a strong performance, as does Matt Damon, as does Edward Burns, as does Barry Pepper. The entire cast is electric.
Even more impressive than the performances is the stark cinematography by Janusz Kaminski (Schindler's List, The Lost World) and the tight direction from Spielberg. In many scenes hand held cameras were used to great effect, and they stylize the film with a mixture of clarity and radiate an overall look of uniqueness. Saving Private Ryan's visual overture is fast paced and convincing, as if the events on screen were as realistic as the war itself.
Deliberately more sentimental that Spielberg's other World War II masterpiece Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan is actually an epic movie, packaged as very much an American flick by the identical opening and closing images - an US flag waving in the wind. As one of the great directors of our time, Steven Spielberg has re-assured us that a picture can tell a thousand words, and it is those pictures of war and sacrifice that will continue to lurk in my mind. Saving Private Ryan almost beckons us not to label it as a film. It's an experience.
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