Wednesday 18 April 2012

Saving Private Ryan (1998) - ★★★★

There's nothing I can say that will do justice for how well made this movie was. Steven Spielberg is a genius. Once again he has been able to direct a movie so powerful, moving and beautiful yet at the same time horrifying. How this lost Best Picture to Shakespeare In Love I do not know.

Tom Hanks marvelously plays Captain John Miller, a former english teacher and leader of a small troop of eight.  Their mission is to find and bring home a soldier whose three brothers were killed in action. Through going through such an arduous journey to find him and also losing friends along the way, I raised the question, why risk many lives for the sake of one?  The answer came with a touching and subtle ending that I will never forget, for not only did it show that what they did was brave and selfless, but it ended up being worth more than they imagined.

The cinematography throughout is just breathtaking. You can tell how much attention to detail Spielberg put in to making the film. The bombed towns, the colorful and dangerous fields, the blood stained beaches, all locations and sets were perfect and created a realistic setting. There was a great amount of emotions shown through every character and each had a moment to show their personality which made losing them that much harder. Perhaps the best thing about this movie is the realism of it all. It is such a raw and truthful piece of cinema that shows how ruthless war truly is better than any other movie I can think of.

This movie does bring the appreciation for the help at the end of WWII from the Americans out of me by showing that their soldiers went through an extremely difficult time as well as the English, French and Australians. Above all the fantastic cinematography, acting and story, it was the death and destruction  that truly took my breath away. Sure, we all know war is full of death and pain, but to actually see it put to film in such a realistic fashion is what separates this film from most. One of the best war movies I have ever seen, I highly recommend it.

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