SAVING PRIVATE RYAN Review by Victory A. Marasigan http://www.gl.umbc.edu/~vmaras1/reviewsidx.html
Steven Spielberg, the so-called Peter Pan of cinema, was thought to have reached the pinnacle of his filmmaking career with Schindler's List, his docudrama of the Nazi Holocaust. Critics declared that he had finally grown up. Saving Private Ryan, his brutal examination of another aspect of The Last Great War, solidifies this declaration once and for all.
After a brief modern-day prologue,Spielberg takes us to the open holding area of a seaborne landing craft, where we are huddled with a group of American troops. A closer look at these men reveals that most are young, barely out of their teens. An air of dread hangs over all of them as they sit there hoping for the best, expecting the worst. Those who aren't vomiting look like they are a boat-rock away from doing so. Our heartbeats quicken pace along with theirs as the announcement is made that they will be exiting the craft momentarily. And once the landing ramp opens on Omaha Beach, the worst hell ever filmed begins and does not end for twenty-four nerve-jangling minutes.
Never before has the terror of war been depicted so graphically, and never before has the boundary between cinema and reality been dissolved so cleanly as in these opening moments. The sounds and sights bombard us with a jackhammer frenzy, and try as we might, we cannot stop ourselves from the urge to duck our heads. The blood and guts are terrifying, but not as terrifying as the reactions of these soldiers -- some of whom we saw in detailed close-up just before the invasion -- to the surrounding carnage. What would you do if one moment, you were talking to the guy next to you, and the next moment, his head looked like an exploded watermelon?
Tom Hanks is introduced in this opening sequence as Captain John Miller, whose ability to lead under the toughest of circumstances is put to the test as he and his men storm the German opposition's bunkers. After the threat is neutralized and the battle won, Miller receives new orders from higher-ups on the military chain: to find and retrieve a Private James F. Ryan. The reason? Three of the four Ryan brothers have been killed within the past week, and the U.S. government will be damned if it will let another death notice be sent to their mother. Seven additional men are assembled to help carry out the mission, including The Brothers McMullen's Edward Burns and Heat's Tom Sizemore. Giovanni Ribisi does an effective turn as the crew's medic, as does Barry Pepper as their crucifix-kissing, cool-headed marksman. Adam Goldberg and Vin Deisel (actor/director of 1997's Sundance entry Strays) make their own memorable contributions to the company. The odd-man-out of the bunch is Jeremy Davies' (Twister) Corporal Upham, whose inexperience in combat is reluctantly ignored by Miller because of his fluency in German. As the film progresses, the uninitiated Upham comes to represent the lost innocence of his fellow soldiers, and by the end, we know how the others got to be the way they are.
Many war movies have suffered from fundamental flaws in characterization. The soldiers are usually drawn in two ways: as vengeful, heroic adventurers or as weeping boys who are so scared all the time you'd wonder how the hell they made it through boot camp let alone through a single battle. The soldiers in Saving Private Ryan are presented as real people whose anger and fear can constantly be seen lurking just below the surface, even as they perform such heroic acts as throwing bombs at a tank or firing on the enemy from the safety of a bell tower. Anger, fear, and even relief drive the eight travelers to do what they do. They are boys, yes, but the horror of war has clearly hardened the skin on the outside. Only in the dead of night, when they are in the safety of darkness and seclusion, do the soldiers' pent-up longings for home come through.
The search for Private Ryan moves the story along as Miller and his men traverse the French landscape. Janusz Kaminsky's beautiful but inobtrusive camera work is showcased throughout their harrowing journey. Several shots illustrate how unfortunate it was that the American soldiers had to experience the grandeur of rural France with a rifle rather than a camera on their shoulders. Even the images of bombed-out towns suggest the beauty which was once there.
Spielberg remains for the most part invisible in the film, but even in the few moments when his touch is apparent, it does not push the audience away. Take for example, a sequence where an approaching line of German tanks approaches heard but not seen. The effect is just as canny as the approaching T. Rex in Jurassic Park, and even more scary. And the tour de force action climax shows that his training as conductor of films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jaws has been put to good use. Everything Spielberg has learned and perfected over his 25+ year career as a professional filmmaker has culminated in this, one of the most viscerally engaging movies ever made.
The script, a truth-inspired work of fiction by Robert Rodat, is well-paced and logically sequenced. There are no clear resolutions or fully-bared souls, a fact which may frustrate audiences at first. One must realize that Hollywood has accustomed us to distinct morals--solutions real life are never so pat. When Miller and his boys find the lost private and don't get what they expect, they don't flip out or get angry. Rather, they are understanding, and the reason for their understanding is subtly revealed in their subsequent interactions with Ryan. Audiences may at first be put off by the blandness of Private Ryan's character, but the film's finale drives home the point that it does not matter that his character was so thinly portrayed. The point is that he was a man, and that his life was just as important as all those around him.
The emotions in the film are neither forced nor manipulated. There is one wrenching moment halfway through the film where the usually opaque Captain Miller steals away and sobs. It is an easy thing to make a filmgoer feel the pain of a gunshot. It is not quite so easy to make someone empathize with a soldier's dismay at the realization of what kind of person he has become. Saving Private Ryan succeeds at both of these. It is a testament to Ryan's power that, even days after watching it, the film continues to haunt. Who will ever be able to forget the image of a disoriented soldier stooping down to pick up and carry away his severed arm? Think of it: images like these have haunted WWII veterans for the last 53 years.
GRADE: A
Reviewed July 24, 1998 at Loews White Marsh Theater, White Marsh, MD.
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