Tom Hanks, Edward Burns,
Tom Sizemore, Matt DamonTom Hanks, Edward Burns,
Tom Sizemore, Matt Damon
Grade: A
Steven Spielberg’s latest epic war film opens and ends with a shot of the American flag, waving bravely and briskly in the wind. But its meaning in the beginning is different than that of the end. In the beginning, the flag means what it always meant to us; patriotism, independence, and freedom. But, in the end, the symbolic meaning of the flag is a little more muddled, a little more out of focus, a little more... pointless.
After a Titanic-like prologue, that’s both quiet and touching, the audience is immediately pummeled with a horrifying sight. American soldiers shipped across the seas in small boats, approaching the beach, throwing up from sea sickness and fear. The doors open, and German gunfire kills them all before they even have a chance to stand up. That is the start of Mr. Spielberg’s re-creation of D-Day, which is so vivid, so real, and so terrifying, I wouldn’t be fooled if the director had really traveled back in time to D-Day, and ran around the beach with a hand held camera. The entire half hour sequence actually seems to be filmed with a hand held camera; confusing, shaky, and illogical. The effect of this odd directorial style is incredible, as it manages to place the audience in the scene, instead of on the outside watching in. It’s a scene that I probably would been happier viewing from the sidelines. The true surprise, and brilliance, of this massive re-creation, however, is not the gore, or the style in which it’s filmed, but the fact that it doesn’t end. It just keeps going and going and going and going. A man twists in an explosion, and falls to the ground with only one leg. Somebody else has his intestines poured all over the beach. And yet another confused soldier looks around, and picks up his fallen arm (not a weapon) as if it could be of some use to him later on. After a while, we become accustomed to the rat-a-tat-tat of machine gun fire, so much to the point that it still rings in our ears in the more quiet scenes to come.
But, the scene does end, actors are introduced, the camera calms down, and a plot is developed. We are watching a movie after all. This discovery and slowing pace of the film after the half hour battle is its singular structural flaw, but Saving Private Ryan immediately regains its grip on you when a distraught mother receives three particularly unnerving telegrams. After that point, you’re in the movie’s grasp, and there is very little you can do (save leave the theater, which I can imagine many might do) to escape. The plot that is introduced involves the army sending eight men into what could be described as "the worst place in the world to be at the time" to rescue one soldier who lost three of his brothers in the war (hence the previously mentioned three telegrams). This seems to be a publicity stunt to boost the moral of the troops and the public, but the eight men sent on the mission know better. Each of the soldiers (including Edward Burns and Tom Sizemore) express their concerns in the dubious mission. "Can anyone explain to me the logic in risking the lives of the eight of us to save one?". It’s a good question that the movie is a little too smart to provide an answer for. In war, answers are pretty hard to come by.
The group of soldiers is led by Captain Miller, played very well by Tom Hanks. Miller places a huge brick wall around his personal life (his team has a pool going to see who can get him to discuss his personal life), which helps us build interest in his character. When he finally does spill his guts (not literally), it is, somehow, kind of sad and very touching. His life, as Miller describes it, is nothing like we have imagined. The other soldiers also have stories and lives that they reveal with much more ease than the disturbed captain, which make them more than just dirty faces in the crowd, when their time of reckoning comes. There is one particularly disturbing death scene that involves 1) family issues, 2) lots of blood, 3) revenge issues, and 4) spilling intestines all over the ground. It’s a challenge in itself to keep your eyes open for the whole film.
Well, I reveal no surprises by stating that the team does find Private James Ryan (Matt Damon), but his character is, as expected, a little too stubborn to leave his post. And, somehow or another, everything culminates in one more battle which is even more horrific than the opening re-creation of D-Day. Because, now we know the soldiers. Now, they’re not just a group of people with blood gushing from bullet holes, but they’re people that we care about. People that we don’t want to see get killed. There is no truth, no logic, and no sense to be made out of the battle scenes. They’re just people killing people until one side totally destroys the other. And then the American flag comes back onto the screen, and I looked upon it, not with pride, but with a certain level of contempt.
A few weeks ago I saw the movie Armageddon, and, at this time, I would like to spell out the difference between true bravery and mock bravery. Mock bravery is a small group of people risking their lives to save the world, just as long as they don’t have to pay taxes anymore. True bravery is a small group of people risking their lives to save one life. One life that may or may not be worth it. And then, when all is said and done, they still have to pay taxes.