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Saving Private Ryan
1998
Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the .. Read more
| Starring | Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon |
|---|---|
| Director | Steven Spielberg |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Drama |
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Saving Private Ryan
Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in America, where she is grieving the unimaginable loss of her three other sons to the war. The first unforgettable 20 minutes of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN realistically and horrifically depicts the Normandy invasion as Miller. his second-in-command, Sergeant Horvath (Tom Sizemore), and the others in the unit land at Omaha Beach. Before the film began shooting, Hanks and the actors in his squad went through a one-week boot camp in the woods. All the actors, except Hanks, wanted to quit, but Hanks rallied their spirits by reminding them of the incredible tribulations endured by the real veterans of World War II. Production designer Tom Sanders found a beach in Ireland that perfectly matched the landscape of Normandy's. Spielberg gave great credit to the Irish army who helped re-create the Omaha Beach scenes.
| Starring | Tom Hanks, Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon, Ted Danson, Vin Diesel, Dennis Farina, Adam Goldberg, Jeremy Davies, Giovanni Ribisi, Barry Pepper, Paul Giamatti |
|---|---|
| Director | Steven Spielberg |
| Studio | PARAMOUNT HOME ENTERTAINMENT |
| Run time | DVD: 2 hrs 42 mins |
| Certificate | |
| Collections | 100 must-see movies |
| Genres | Action/Adventure, Drama |
| Language | DVD: English |
| Hearing-impaired | English |
| Subtitles | DVD: English |
| Released | DVD: 01 Nov 2004 Production year: 1998 |
| Format | DVD |
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
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Critics' reviews (6)
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With this Oscar-winning attempt to reshape the past through fiction, Steven Spielberg comes closer than ever before to depicting historical truth. The action opens brutally with a gut-wrenching re-creation of the Second World War D-Day landing on Omaha beach. Veterans of the campaign are divided on the authenticity of some of the more spectacularly gory injuries, but most agree that Spielberg and cinematographer Janusz Kaminski succeeded in capturing the terrifying and bewildering chaos of the encounter. Yet, away from the fighting, the film occasionally lapses into combat picture cliché, with too many members of Tom Hanks's unit recalling stereotypical soldiers from morale-boosting movies made during the war itself. But, then, this is less about the conflict and its concerns than it is about the war films that Spielberg grew up watching. Ultimately, it lacks the resonance of such classics as All Quiet on the Western Front, but (apart from its corny bookend sequences) this is still well-meaning, strongly acted and slickly mounted, and ranks among the director's very best films.
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Two battles, the opening sequence on the Omaha beach and a later one in a ruined town, are virtuoso demonstrations of the director's art; in between, though, the film settles for a standard platoon-in-peril routine familiar from other war movies.
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Most helpful member's review
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29 out of 41 people found this review helpful
Great Fun
I was initially slightly reticent about the 163min running time of Saving Private Ryan, and this was not allayed by the opening five minutes of the film. However, I needn't have worried: This is a genuinely great film. Wonderfully executed, shot with an evident abundance of care and attention, with absolutely first-rate attention to detail.Spielberg takes an excellent story, full of action, heroics, humanity and moral dilemma, and makes it come alive in a way that only a talented veteran of the silver screen possibly could. (Did this same man *really* direct War of the Worlds? Or did he just pay his plumber to do it for him while he went to the pub?)
Interesting to note is that this film is not some tragic relaying of someone's personal triumph and tragedy, and not purportedly based on true events. So feel free to laugh, guilt-free, at the entertaining ways in which some of the soldiers are killed, and marvel at the Boy's Own comic-book style of WW2 derring-do displayed herein.
That said, it loses one star for the unabashed schmaltz of the opening five and closing five minutes, (Surely Spielberg can come up with a less cheesy way of conveying the same thing?) as well as almost managing to get through the entire movie without a single That-Wouldn't-Happen moment, until fifteen minutes before the end, when, unfortunately, a few start to appear.
Still none of this actually ruins the film, and it's well worth watching. Don't be put off by the length as the time just zips by.
And finally, Saving Private Ryan quietly holds what is perhaps the pinnacle of Spielberg's directing career, and something which I thought impossible: Somehow, he manages to extract a genuinely great performance from the otherwise dire Vin Diesel. Amazing.
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- RJTaylor from Manchester
- Posted 02 Jun 2007 22:57
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Most recent members' review
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4 out of 7 people found this review helpful
Everyone should watch this film....
...as it really gives you a feeling for what it must have been like during WWII. I watched it just before rememberance day unintentionally, and it really brought it home to me what it's all about and I made sure i got a poppy.
Very hard to watch at times, but I highly reccomended this film. -
News and features
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Damon boycotts violent roles
- 21 Oct 2009
Matt Damon has turned down a string of movie roles because he refuses to act in films with excessive violence. The Hollywood actor has starred in a number of high action movies including Saving Private Ryan and the Bourne trilogy. But Damon has rejected a number of scripts which include gratuitous fighting - because he's worried it may affect people's real-life actions. He says, "I always look at the violence (in a script). I don't want it to be gratuitous because I do believe that has an... Read more
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Saving Private Ryan
Director Steven Spielberg's World War II tour de force chronicles the journey of a GI squad on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Led by Captain John Miller (Tom Hanks), the unit is under orders to track down a soldier, Private Ryan (Matt Damon), so he might return home to his mother in ...
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